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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE
IN THE WORLD WAR
UNIVERSITY OF M
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Propaganda
in
T echnique
the
World War
HAROLD D. LASSWELL
Assistant Professor of Political Science ,
The University f Chicago
NEW YORK
PETER SMITH
1938
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1927
REPRINTED, 1938
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PRI SITED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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To my Parents
ANNA PRATHER LASSWELL
LINDEN DOWNEY LASSWELL
DUinao it GOOgle
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UNIVERSITY OF Ml
HI GAN
I
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Among the libraries which I have used, special acknowledge-
ment is due to the Musis et biblioth&que de La guerrs (Paris).
Among the propagandists and journalists with whom I
have consulted and debated, it would be invidious to dis-
tinguish. Within the academic ranks, I owe a personal
and professional debt of formidable proportions to Charles
E. Merriam, Chairman of the Department of Political
Science of the University of Chicago, who has not only
encouraged this, as indeed every effort to depart from the
beaten path of formalism, but who has placed his special
experience as a member of the staff of the Committee of
Public Information in Italy during the War at my disposal.
Quincy Wright, Professor of Political Science in the same
institution, has rescued me from several mistakes. Imper-
fections of conception and execution are my own doing.
H.D.L.
Chicago
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CONTENTS
CHAPTX*
rxax
I.
The Matter in Hand
•
• •
I
' ll .
Propaganda Organization
•
• •
14
III.
War Guilt and War Aims
•
• •
47
IV.
Satanism ....
•
• •
77
V.
The Illusion of Victory .
•
•
102
VI.
Preserving Friendship
•
• •
1 14
VII.
Demoralizing the Enemy
•
• •
161
VIII.
Conditions and Methods of
Propaganda :
A Summary
•
• •
185
IX,
The Results of Propaganda
•
• •
214
Note on Bibliography .
•
• •
223
Index
• • • • •
•
• •
231
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE
, IN THE WORLD WAR
CHAPTER T
THE MATTER IN HAND
There are abundant signs of interest in international
propaganda since the War of 1914. Several books have
been published by men who held responsible propaganda
posts during the War. Creel in fhp Upi^d States Stuart
in England, Nicolai in Germany, and Waitz and Tonnelet
in France, have published much of their record to the world.
Individual propaganda agents of high and low degree have
written their memoirs, and international propaganda is
alluded to in every reminiscence and apology of post-
armistice times.
The professors and the graduate students and the
publicists have swollen the flood of systematic speculation
about, and systematic examination of, the subject. Among
the conspicuous names in Germany, where the best work
has been done, are Johann Plenge, Edgar Stem-Rubarth,
Ferdinand Tonnies, and Kurt Baschwitz. 1 Research mono-
graphs of some value have been prepared by Schonemann,
who wrote in German on the United States, Marchand,
1 For the titles of their books, and the writings referred to elsewhere in
this chapter, see the bibliography.
1
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
2 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
who wrote in French on certain aspects of German pro-
paganda, Wiehler, who wrote in German on special problems,
and several others. D^martial dissected his own French
and Allied propaganda during the War in a brilliant
contribution to the de-bunking of world opinion. Members
of the new propaganda, or publicity, profession have begun
to rationalize their own practices. The books by Bemays
and Wilder and Buell are pioneers in this direction. Univer-
sities have begun to offer courses of lectures upon the new
technique, and vast collections of War propaganda have
been assembled at Stuttgart, Paris, London and Staiiford.
There are many reasons why the role of propaganda
s in international politics, and especially in war-time, is
receiving more careful scrutiny to-day than heretofore.
There is a new inquisitiveness abroad in the world. Some
of the people who in the years before the War were disposed
to accept the changing tides of international animosity
and friendship as inevitable manifestations of the cosmic
Tate, which commanded the sun to rise or .the rain to fall,
have become suspicious of the supernatural or the imper-
sonal character of these events. A word has appeared,
which has come to have an ominous clang in many minds
— Propaganda. We live among more people than ever, who
are puzzled, uneasy, or vexed at the unknown cunning
which seems to have duped and degraded them. It is
often an object of vituperation, and therefore, of interest,
discussion and, finally, of study.
These people probe the mysteries of propaganda with
that compound of admiration and chagrin with which
the victims of a new gambling trick demand to have the
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
THE MATTER IN HAND
8
thing explained. T hat credulous ut opianism, which fed
upon the mighty words which exploited the hopes of the
mass in war, h as in many minds given wav to cyn icism
and disenchantment, and with these earnest souls pro-
paganda is a far more serious matter. Some of those who
trusted so much and hated so passionately have put their
hands to the killing of man, they have mutilated others
and perhaps been mutilated in return, they have encouraged
others to draw the sword, and they have derided and
besmirched those who refused to rage as they did. Fooled
by propaganda ? If so, they writhe in the knowledge that
they were the blind pawns in plans which they did not
incubate, and which they neither devised nor comprehended
nor approved.
In the defeated countries, such as Germany, the military
people have seized upon propaganda to save their own
faces. They declare that their army was never defeated
by the battering of Allied battalions, but that the nation
collapsed behind their lines because all the alien and radical
elements in the population were easy marks for the seductive
bait of foreign propaganda. This is plausible to the public
because people were everywhere warned during the war
to beware the noxious fumes of enemy propaganda. The
Germans were wrought up over “ Reuter, the fabricator
of War lies," Northcliffe, " The Minister of Lying," and the
Allies, the " All-lies." They were, therefore, predisposed
to attach very great importance to propaganda. Since the
War Germany has been shorn of military strength, and
must, therefore, rely upon subtler means of protecting
and advancing its interests than armed coercion. Patriotic
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
4 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Germans are anxious to understand the nature of the non-
coercive weapon which was wielded so successfully to their
discomfiture in war-time, and there is to-day a more
luxurious flowering of treatises upon international pro-
paganda (its nature, limitations and processes) in Germany
than anywhere else.
In some measure the present occupation with propaganda
i s du e jo,__thfi outright pacifists. There is a "widespread
belief that fighting is due to ill-will, and that, if war is to
cease, there must be a " moratorium on hate." Can pro-
paganda furnish a weapon of direct attack upon the
psychology of nations, and expose the ways and means of
sowing confidence where mistrust rankles ?
This whole discussion about the ways and means of
controlling public opinion testifies to the collapse of the
traditional species of democratic romanticism and to the
rise of a dictatorial habit of mind. As long as the democrats
were in opposition, they were free to belabour the fact of an
infallible though almighty king with the fantasy of an
all-wise public. Enthrone the public and dethrone the
king ! Pass the sceptre to the wise ! ' U
Familiarity with the ruling public has bred contempt.
Modern" reflections upon democracy boil down to the pro-
position, more or less contritely expressed, that the
democrats were deceiving themselves. The public has not
reigned with benignity and restraint. The good life is
not in the mighty rushing wind of public sentiment. It is
no organic secretion of the horde, but the tedious achieve-
ment of the few. The lover of the good life no longer
consults Sir Oracle ; he pulls the strings of Punch and
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
THE MATTER IN HAND
5
Judy. Thus argues the despondent democrat. Let us,
therefore, reason together, brethren, he sighs, and find the
good, and when we have found it, let us find out how to
make jip the public mind to accept it. Inform, cajole, bam-
boozle and seduce in the name of the public good. Preserve
the majority convention, but dictate to the majority I
To the sombre curiosity of the discouraged democrat
must be added the analytical, motive of the social scientist.
The division of social thinking has at last reached a point
which enables a few people to achieve a fixed preoccupation
with the explanation of how the social wheels go round,
wholly apart from any pressing anxiety to steer them in
any particular direction. Their business is to discover
and report, not to philosophize and reform. They are
more anxious to gratify their curiosity than to follow the
footsteps of the deity who created man in his own image.
The people who probe the mysteries of public opinion
in 'politics must, for the present, at least, rely'' upon some-
thing other than exact measurement, to confirm or discredit
their speculations. Generalizations about public opinion
stick because they are plausible and not because they are
experimentally established. They fall by the wayiide,
when others, who have had experience with the kind of
fact which they purport to describe, disagree witfi the
original observer. Sometimes this disagreement is sharp
and emphatic, because it comes from people who have tried
to use existing notions about public opinion in their efforts
to control it. This is the engineering test. It is employed
by propagandists and publicity-men of all sorts and shapes.
Conjectures in the field of public opinion are particularly
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
6 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
susceptible to engineering tests. But much of the literature of
public opinion is of such abstruse and indefinite character
that it defies empirical verification. There is a plethora of
theories about something known as public opinion in general,
and a paucity of hypotheses about public opinions in particu-
lar. When the field of public opinion is split into the problems
of explaining and controlling opinions about policies,
attitudes toward persons and groups, and attitudes toward
the various modes of political participation, some more
tangible progress may be expected.
The role of opinion in international politics is peculiarly
worthy of study, because it is a matter of growing importance.
We are witnessing the growth of a world public, and this
public has arisen in part, because international propaganda
has at once agitated and organized it. Interests overlap
boundaries. It is a mere fiction that the citizens and the
governments of each country refrain from meddling in
affairs which are technically within the competence of
another. In the summer of 1925, for instance, the German
Reichstag was engaged in considering a proposal to levy
protective duties upon agricultural and manufactured
commodities. Theoretically, this is a domestic question,
and is reserved for the exclusive determination of whoever
happens to live inside the boundaries of the juristic entity
called Germany. But in point of fact, external interests
were affected, and they brought pressure to bear in their
own behalf. American manufacturers, whose goods would
be barred if the tariff went into operation, joined forces with
British, French and German interests and sent their agents
to Germany. They sought to reach the Press and to
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
THE MATTER IN HAND
7
strengthen the hands of the elements inside Germany, who
stood out against the bill.
Such private influe ncing as this is no longer the exception, i
but the custom. Corporations, for instance, find it con- j
venient to subsidize newspapers abroad ; and influencing |
is by no means confined to unofficial persons. Governments >
take an active hand in the game. The prestige-propaganda' 7
of the Japanese on the exclusion question, the " myth of a
single guilty nation ” propaganda of the Germans against
the Versailles settlement, and the Soviet propaganda for
American recognition are current cases. The new organs
of international government are in close touch with interests
inside each nation. The Intematiorthl Labour Office
co-operates with those who wish to procure the ratification
and the enforcement of the draft conventions of the Inter-
national Labour Conference.
Official propaganda often takes the form of encouraging
patriotic societies with branches abroad. The League of
Germans Abroad claims to have 150 locals in Germany and
in foreign countries, and the Union for Germanism Abroad
says that it has over a million members in Germany and
Austria. There are special organizations for Austria,
Schleswig, the Saar Territory, Danzig, Czecho-Slovakia,
Poland, the Tyrol, the Danube and overseas. These
associations exist to keep alive a sentiment of cultural
unity and may, in times of emergency, go further.
Governments smile benevolently upon certain inter-
national societies, such as the Alliance Francaise and the
*
English-Speaking Union. They keep open channels of
influence, which may be valuable in times of strain.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
8 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
There are innumerable official and unofficial propagandas
to instigate revolution, secession, or racial, cultural, geo-
graphical and religious unity. Such are suggested by these
words : Communism, Irish Independence, Pan-Islam, Pan-
Slav, Pan-America, Pan-Europe, League of Nations Union.
There are propagandas on behalf of political personalities,
for it is important to procure a favourable reception for
every ambassador at a new post.
It is public opinion and propaganda in war-time which
calls forth the most strenuous exertions. The condpc t of
war, conceived as a psychological problem, may be stat ed
in terms of mo ral. A nation with a high moral is capable
of performing the tasks laid upon it because of a certain
momentum, which can only be measured when serious
resistances appear. The conventional signs of high moral
are enthusiasm, determination, self-confidence, absence of
carping criticism and absence of complaint. Almost every
fact may' have its implication for moral. The calorics in
the official ration, the supply of cigarettes, the opportunities
for recreation, the confidence of officers and public men,
the smart demeanour of the troops, the mode of inflicting
discipline ; all this, and more, affects the fighting vim and
tenacity of the military and civil population.
The problem of maintaining moral is only in part a
problem of propaganda, because propaganda is but one of
the many devices which must be relied upon. Its scope
is limited though important. By propaganda is not meant
the control of mental states by changing such objective
conditions as the supply of cigarettes or the chemical com-
position of food. Propaganda does not even include the
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
.CO ■*' v
THE MATTER IN HAND 9
stiffening of moral by a cool and confident bearing. It
IfiffiTS solely to the control of opinion b y significant symbols ,
or, to speak more concretely and less accurately, by stories,
rumours, reports, pictures and other forms of social com-
munication. , Propaganda is concerned with the manage-
ment of opinions and attitudes by the direct manipulation
of social suggestion rather than by altering other conditions
in the, environment or in the organism.
Propaganda is one of the three chief implements of
operation against a belligerent enemy : —
Military Pressure (The coercive power of the land, sea
and air forces).
Economic Pressure (Interference with access to sources
of material, markets, capital and labour power).
>. Propaganda (Direct use of suggestion).
Negotiation is a method of influencing foreign states
with which one is not in active combat. By negotiation is
meant the official exchanges which look toward agreement.
X Mediati on between contending parties and submission to
arbitration are both commonly invoked. A government
influences its own people by legislation, adjudication,
policing, propaganda, and ceremonialism. For the soldiers,
whom it has under the most complete control, it must
make adequate provision of necessities and relaxation on
pain of trouble. It drills them into a unified missile of
destruction.
During war much reliance must be placed on propaganda
to promote economy of food, textiles, fuel, and other com-
modities, and to stimulate recruiting, employment in war
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
10 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD W,
industries, service in relief work, and the purchase of b»
But by far the pnt*»nt rnlf* r^f propaganda is to mol
the anim osity oL *hp community against the enemy
maint ain frie ndly relations with neutrals and allies, to arc
_th£_c£ulrals- against the enemy, and to break mp the
wall of e nemy ^ptaffnnispi. In short, it is the si&nifica.
of propaganda for international attitudes in wa\ wh
renders it of peculiar importance. \
International war propaganda rose to such ama^u
dimensions in the last war, because the communization\
warfare necessitated the mobilization of the civilian mine ;
No government could hope to win without a united natioi
behifid it, and no government could have a united nation
behind it unless it controlled the minds of its people. The
civilians had to be depended upon to supply recruits for
the front and for the war industries. The sacrifices of war
had to be borne without complaints that spread dissension
at home and discouragement in the trenches.
Now the civilians cannot be subjected to the same dis-
cipline as the soldiers. The effect of the drill to which the
soldier is subjected is thus described by Maxwell : —
the individual becomes highly imitative, conforming his
movements in every respect to those of the drill-sergeants.
He is not permitted to make the slightest alteration in the
movements which he is shown, and is stopped again and
again until at last his movements are satisfactory. A,t
this stage in a soldier’s training his behaviour is almost
mechanical, and the unity achieved throughout the group
is very little higher than that displayed by a machine. . . .
The mere fact that each man acts like his neighbour
enables the individual to rely upon the co-operation of
his fellows with reference to the common end. On the
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
THE MATTER IN HAND
11
parade ground each man soon discovers that every member
of his unit is co-operating with him in the evolution in .
progress. In the trenches he is confident that the men on
either side of him are doing the same, and that the divisions
on the flanks of his own divisions are co-operating for the
common end. It is through discipline that it is achieved
(this co-operation) in the Army, and the mutual trust
engendered has the effect of welding what might otherwise
be only a mechanical organization into a living unity . 1
Active service brings with it a tendency to relapse to
the primitive. Many observers have said that it is the
simple bed-rock things that matter most. It is food and
drink and smokes and sleep and warmth and shelter and
creature comforts that bulk largest at the front. The
human values and sentiments are left to atrophy for want
of stimulation. The quiet influence of the presence of
friendly scenes and faces is lost. The influence of certain
of the more complex forms of religion is less. *
Military life approximates the aggregation of disciplined i
men in a dehumanizing environment. The civilian lacks
the automatic discipline of drill and remains in an environ-
ment in which his sentiment-life (his human life) continues.
Civilian unity is not achieved by the regimentation of ;
muscles. I t is achieved bv a repetition of ideas rath er \
t han movemen ts. The civilian mind is standard ized by
new s and not by drills. Propaganda is the method by which
this process is aided and abetted.
The intentional circulation of ideas by propaganda helps
to overcome the psychic resistances to whole-hearted parti-
cipation in war, which have arisen with the decay of personal
1 A Psychological Retrospect oj the Great War, p. 162.
• Sec Maxwell. as cited. 100.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
12 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
loyalty to chiefs. Peace has come to be regarded as the
normal state of society, and not war. There are ideologies
which condemn war either as something bad in itself, or as
the product of a detested order of society. Propaganda is
- t he war of ideas on ide as.
This study is a preliminary and highly provisional analysis
• of the group of propaganda problems connected with the
I control of international antipathies and attractions in war-
* time. How may hate be mobilized against an enemy ?
How may the enemy be demoralized by astute manipulation ?
How is it possible to cement the friendship of neutral and
allied peoples ?
It is not proposed to write history, but to describe tech-
nique. When the war has receded further into the past,
it will be possible to write at least a fragmentary history of
the international propaganda of the time. The aim of
the present inquiry is at once more modest and more am-
bitious than this. It is more modest in that it has chosen
but a few of the facts which will be included in a compre-
hensive history. It is more ambitious in that it has under-
taken to evolve an explicit theory of how international
war propaganda may be conducted with success. • It relies
almost exclusively upon American, British, French and
German experience.
Why not postpone the theory of method until the history
is finished ? The answer is that we knew enough about the
history to justify a provisional study of technique, and a
technical study at this time will perhaps improve the quality
of the forthcoming history. After all, the relation between
the student whose main interest is in the mechanism and
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
THE MATTER IN HAND
18
the student whose chief concern is what happened in a
particular circumstance is reciprocal. In a sense, the
scientist and the engineer ask questions for the historian
to answer, and the historian reports upon the probable
influence of specific factors in a definite set of past circum-
stances. The lines are never mutually exclusive, for the
historian is continually uncovering a new example of method,
while the technical student is often able to plug a gap in
chronology through his researches.
The procedure in this investigation has been to stick
close to common-sense analysis. There are many seductive
analogies between collective behaviour and the behaviour
of individuals in a clinic, 1 but the analogies are too easily
strained in the making. Clinical psychology is too rudi-
mentary to carry an imposing superstructure. The present
study goes no further than to develop a simple classification
of the various psychological materials, which have been
used to produce certain specified results, and to propose
a general theory of strategy and tactics, for the manipulation
of these materials. Subsequent inquiry and criticism may
find other categories which are at once more accurate and
suggestive.
1 See, for example. Miss Playne's book called The Neuroset of Nations.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
CHAPTER II
PROPAGANDA ORGANIZATION
Inside a democratic count ry there is a certain pre sumption
against^ovemmenT propaganda. As Representative Gillett,
commenting upon the Creel Bureau, said, admitting that
it has not been conducted in a partisan spirit :
That is the great danger of such a bureau as this, because
we must all admit that if any administration has in its
power a Bureau of Public Information, as it is called, but
really an advertising bureau, a propaganda bureau, a
bureau of publicity, to exploit the various acts and depart-
ments of the Government, it is a very dangerous tiling in a
Republic ; because, if used in a partisan spirit or for
partisan advantage of the administration, it has tremendous
power, and in ordinary peace-time I do not think any party
or any administration would justify it or approve it.*
The truth is that aU governments are engage d to som e
e xtent in propaganda a s par t of their ord ina ry peac e-time
functions. They make propaganda on behalf of diplomatic
friends or against diplomatic antagonists, and this is
unavoidable. While, therefore, the presumption exists
against propaganda work by a democratic government, this
statement should not be taken too literally.
During the war-period it came to be recognized that the
mobilization of men and means was not sufficient ; there
must be a mobilization of opinion. Power over opinion,
1 U.S. Cong. Rec , 65th Cong , 2nd Sess., p. 7915.
14
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PROPAGANDA ORGANIZATION
15
as over life and property, passed into official hands, because
the danger from licence was greater than the danger of
abuse. Indeed, there is no question but that government
management of opinion is an unescapable corollary of large-
scale modem war. The only question is the degree to which
the government should try to conduct its propaganda
secretly^ and the degree to which it should conduct it openly.
As far as the home public is concerned, there is nothing To
be gained by concealment, and there is a certain loss of
prestige for all that is said, when secrecy is attempted. The
carrying power of ideas is greatly increased when the
authority of the government is added to them. With
certain insignificant exceptions (the smuggling of propaganda
material into adjacent enemy countries), nothing is lost, if
all propaganda operations in neutral and allied countries
are carried on openly. Otherwise, indeed, suspicion and
distrust may exist where complete confidence and under-
standing are indispensable. The United States Committee
on Public Information was undoubtedly correct in notifying
neutral governments of what they wanted to do inside
neutral borders.
J
It is bad tactics, however, to announce blatantly to the
enemy that a “ Director of Propaganda in Enemy Coun-
tries " has been named. As Sir Herbert Samuel said in
the House of Commons, when Lord Northcliffe was appointed
to this post in 1918 :
Possibly the Germans may regard Lord Northcliffe, the
proprietor of the Daily Mail and the Evening News, in
much the same light as we may regard Count Reventlow.
What should wc think, if wc heard that an official announce-
ment had been made by the German Government, that they
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
16 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
had appointed Count Reventlow as the Director to carry on
propaganda in the United Kingdom, and in other Allied
countries ? 1
Assuming, in principle, that propaganda should be con-
ducted in the open by a belligerent government, the pro-
blem of organization presents itself. What agencies should
carry on the work, and to what degree is unity of command
*^»ypra 1 fj^yprnmgpj — sprvirp^ into t he active control of
ce rtain stream s of information, and international attitudes
are to some degree involved with the rest. There is the
Fo reign Office a t home, and the Di plomatic and Consu lar
home, and the Military and Naval -Attaches abroad. There
is the General Staff and the Field Headquarters. There are
the various service ministries engaged upon problems of
supply and internal regulation. The mere enumeration of
these agencies is sufficient to remind one of the evident
proposition that the influencing of attitudes is implicit in
every function, and that it is incapable of complete segrega-
tion in anything like the degree to which, let us say,
the purchasing of horses can be confined to a particular
agency.
^Disunity brings danger$. The Foreign Office and the
Field Headquarters may hold out contradictory inducements
to the enemy and cast the whole propaganda of demoraliza-
tion into disrepute. The military people at home may
announce the destruction of public buildings in the occupied
zone, much to the consternation of the diplomatic representa-
1 103 H. C. Deb. 5s., col. 1410. 27 February, 1918.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PROPAGANDA ORGANIZATION
17
tives in neutral countries. There is always the possibility that
bad news of different kinds may break simultaneously and
produce an unwonted state of depression if each service
gives its own news to the public. The news of a naval loss,
a military loss and an aviation loss may come when there
is a shortage of flour, and when there is a prickly set of wage
and price problems agitating the prints at home. If this
news were handled through a central clearing house, it
could be distributed over a period of time and nullified by
the more favourable aspects of the general situation.
the military people publish the same pamplilet that the
diplomatic service publishes, and distribute it through
the military attaches abroad when the diplomatic attaches
have already doled it out, no good purpose can be served. •
It is difficult to work out a revision of general policy in the
light of propaganda efforts, where there is no continuing
mechanism for keeping tab on the whole range of propaganda
work. The backwardness of certain departments, which
may be opposed to publicity, may produce a repercussion
of uneasiness and distrust. There may be delay in shifting
the personnel devoted to propaganda work to the sectors
where the most effect can be secured.
Some of these dangers may be offset by the dangers of
unity. Any scheme of unity runs the risk of antagonizing
the amour profre of some service and of ruining moral. If
the control of foreign and domestic propaganda were inte-
grated too tightly in the hands of one man, the one or the
other might suffer from the preconceptions of the responsible
head. Their requirements are so different that only a
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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rare combination of talents can be relied upon to develop
both of them to the highest efficiency,
The balance seems to point toward, unity as more desirable
than disunity, but it seems to justify a scheme of organiza-
tion which preserves a considerable degree of autonomy to
the constituent services. What are the possible forms of
organization ? There might be a single propaganda execu-
tive. There might be a committee of executives, each
responsible for some branch of propaganda work, such as
i propaganda against the enemy, propaganda in neutral and
allied countries, propaganda among civilians, and propaganda
in the fighting forces. In any case, the propaganda work
in training camps, at the front, in rest camps, on shipboard,
and in transit, would vest largely in the military and naval
authorities. A third method is to arrange a common Press
conference for all departments, but to leave all other forms
of effort to the regular agencies affected, which would
I especially be the Foreign Office, General Headquarters, the
^^Ayar Department, and the Ministry of the Interior. Broadly
^ speaking, the United States adopted the first expedient in
the last war, Great Britain, the second, and Germany, the
third.
, A Committee on Public Information was appointed, by
order of the President, soon after the entrance of the United
States into the War. It was composed of the Secretaries
of the Navy and War Departments, the Secretary of State,
and Mr. George Creel. This was equivalent to* appointing
a separate cabinet member for propaganda, in fact, and
\ * Mr. Creel was responsible for every aspect of propaganda
; work, both at home and abroad. One result of this method of
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organization was to confer upon the representatives of the
Committee abroad something of the prestige of three great
government departments, and to satisfy the self-esteem of
each one.
While the American system sprang into existence at a
single stroke, and remained substantially unaltered during
the .War, the British system went through a long and 7
intricate series of changes. As Major-General Sir George
Aston wrote :
Party politicians are suspicious folk, unwilling to trust
ifny Government with money to spend on propaganda, for
fear that they will spend it in their own interest rather
than the country’s. So the Parliamentary War Aims Com-
mittee was established with representatives of all parties.
The Committee was charged with Home Propaganda, and
came in for much criticism. 1
A small department was set up at Wellington House in
the office of the Insurance Commissioners to prepare pam-
phlets and leaflets. Wellington House initiated the Bryce j
Report,, which was one of the triumphs of the War, on the
propaganda front, but most of its material was put out as }
though it were a private and not an official agency. A films '
and wireless committee was later set up under Mr. Mair, but
its relation to the Home Office and the Foreign Office was
uncertain. A Press Bureau was improvised in August, 1914,
and was later adopted by the Home Office. The Foreign
Office was meanwhile engaged in the following activities,
according to a statement in Parliament by the Under-
secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Acland) :
1 *' Propaganda and the Father of It,” Cornhill Magazine, N.S., v. 48 :
233 - 241 .
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We are taking steps to see that there is supplied to the
Pres* in neutral countries not only news strictly so-called,
but also news which we take here to be rather common-
place, but which is of real interest to other countries, as to
the condition of this country, and information with regard
to trade, and with regard to employment, and with regard
to recruiting, and with regard to all such matters as to
which the condition of this country is really of interest to
our friends. 1
In January, 1917. the Department of Information was
organized. Colonel Buchan had charge of four widely
scattered services, and was responsible to the war Cabinet
and the Prime Minister. An Advisory Committee was
established, which consisted of Lord Northcliffe, Lord
Burnham, Mr. Robert Donald, and Mr. C. P. Scott. When
Lord Northcliffe proceeded on his mission to America, Lord
Beaverbrook was appointed to this Committee, and later.
Sir George Riddell was added. Things were still at loose
ends under this sj'stem, and Sir E. Carson, a member of the
War Cabinet, was asked to co-ordinate the various agencies.
The War Department had organized a separate service for
the purpose of conducting propaganda against the German
Army, and the civilian peoples. Finally, in February, Tf)iS,
Lord Beaverbrook was made Minister of Information,
occupying the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
At the same time Lord Northcliffe was named Director of
Propaganda in Enemy Countries, and Directors were
appointed for neutral countries for intelligence, and for
cinematograph propaganda. Lord Northcliffe was tech-
nically responsible to Lord Beaverbrook in respect of finance,
but, in fact, he had the right of direct access to the Prime
* 66 H. C. Dtb, 5s., col. 549, 9 Septemter, 1914.
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Minister and the War Cabinet. Confusion was worse con-
founded by locating the Enemy Propaganda Department in
the British War Mission with which Northcliffe had been,
working for some months past. Informal conferences were
inaugurated to co-ordinate efforts, and later a Propaganda
Policy Committee was presided over by Lord Northcliffe.
A working unity was actually achieved, although at the
expense of many weary months and years of bickering and
duplication. 1 The Italians arrived at this same method of
organization.
(The most important difference between the American and
the British plan was that the latter put foreign and domestic
propaganda in the hands of co-ordinate officials. When the
technicalities of the matter are allowed for, the British sys-
tem clearly made no distinction between Northcliffe and
Beaverbrook, for instance, who both had direct access to the
Prime Minister and the War Cabinet. The British, in
effect, laid equal emphasis upon the necessity for depart-
mental autonomy in dealing with home, empire, neutral,
allied, and enemy propaganda. The extraordinary diver-
sity of foreign interests to which the British were appealing
probably justified this procedure, because the problems
which were presented were highly distinct.* The Americans
1 The attitude of the Foreign Office clique toward the Beaverbrook
ministry is reflected in the comments of the anonymous author of The
Pomp of Power. He says that a group of experts on foreign affairs refused
to work under the direction of Beaverbrook and migrated to the Foreign
Office. Beaverbrook relied .upon Canadians " whose experience of foreign
affairs and whose knowledge of foreign languages was as limited as his
own." Beaverbrook has told his own story in Politicians and the Press.
Lord Bertie, British Ambassador to France, lamented that for two years
(until 1917) the Foreign Office failed to establish a Press bureau in Paris.
{Diary, 1914-18, II : 203.)
* This will appear especially in connection with a later point.
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came into the War, when it was neither their business to
win the neutrals, nor to play one group against another.
They had a very simple propaganda message to get
across (American preparations ; a Wilsonian Peace),
and it could be vested in one executive without much
danger.
I It was the Germans who had a minimum of co-ordinated
propaganda effort. Each Department went ahead in its
own way, and the only formal co-operation was in the Press
conference, which met two or three times a week. The
War Ministry, the General Staff, the Navy Department, the
District Military Authorities, the Colonial Office, the Post
Office, the Interior Department, the Treasury Department,
the Food Ministry, and eventually, the Foreign Office took
part. The chairmanship was passed round in a rotating
system, and the co-operating journalists chose a committee
to speak for them.
The Military Authorities had to build their work from the
ground up. 1 At the outbreak of the War there was but a
single official who had contact with the Press. But they
soon evolved an extensive Press service to report military
operations, to edit the Field Press, to control the admission
of home papers to the army, and to carry on propaganda
against the enemy.
The Foreign Office was slow in clearing for action, but in
October, 1914, when the check on the Marne had deferred
the prospects for peace, a special Zentralstelle jiir Auslands-
1 Nicolai complains that the Reichstag failed to vote them enough money
to develop a satisfactory Press section before the war, because “ in peace
times the Press was conceived as a partisan instrument.” Nicolai,
Nachrichtendicnst, Prase u. Volkss/itnmung, p. 53.
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diens t was created. This was a very busy bureau and
published an imposing array of propaganda material.
As the War developed, the c onflict between military a nd |
c ivil authorities became more and more acute. The
military men went into a paroxysm of rage when the peace
resolution was moved by Erzberger in 1917, as they had
when Bethmann-Hollweg held out the olive branch in 1916.
The military’ authorities had no patience with palaver
about peace ; they wanted a victorious peace of dictation.
Ludendorff granted an interview to the Berlin Press in which
these views were put before the people. Instantly the Left
and Centre took up the challenge, and assailed the military
for trying to interfere in politics. The Chancellor, to avoid
being caught between partisan fires, refused, as had his
predecessor, to create a separate Minister of Propaganda.
1 he military authorities had proposed this on three different
occasions, for they had already begun to feel the effects of
Allied propaganda. At last the G.H.Q. tried to reach the
home public directly by establishing a special Press service
called the Deutsche Kriegsnachrichten, which, in spite of the
opposition of the large papers, prospered. At the direction •'«
of General Ludendorff ^n elaborate plan of patriotic
stimulation was drawn up. It was designed to reach the
civilian and the fighting population. 1
There were other tentative gestures toward the formation j
of a special propaganda agency to co-ordinate German ^
efforts at home and abroad, but all of them failed. Private
citizens organized the Wagner Culture Committee, to spread
pro-German propaganda very early in the War, but its work
1 The memorandum of July 29 , 1927, is printed in Nicolai, p. 119 ff.
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lacked both prestige and deftness. ^Germany suffered from
the overzealous efforts of private persons to fill the gaps left
by Government omissions^ Professor Lamprccht spoke
with contempt of the educated man who “ obtained the
largest possible goose quill, and wrote to all his foreign
friends, telling them that they did not realize what splendid
fellows the Germans were, and not infrequently adding that,
in many cases, their conduct required some excuses. . . .
The consequences were gruesome.” In 1916, some of the
civilian authorities commended the movement to form a
Deutscher National- Ausschuss, but this was still a private
venture. Chancellor Hertling at last took some steps
toward unified control in August, 1918, but his measures
'Sverc both inadequate and tardy.
C The French kept their propaganda in the hands of the
Established diplomatic, military and naval agencies.
Occasionally they supplemented the work abroad by
sending out a High Commissioner, who combined propa-
ganda, economic and other functions, as did the temporary
war missions of all the allied powers. The Matson dc la
Presse had its agents attached to the legations abroad. 1
When Allies arr... fight ing together, the problem of co-
ordinating their propagand as and their policies arises.
Inter-Allied co-operation in the last War was in a rudi-
mentary stage at the time of the Armistice. When Lord
Northcliffe became head of the British Enemy Propaganda
Department in February, 1918, he called a preliminary
1 A committee to conduct artistic propaganda abroad was formed in the
spring of 1918 under the direction of the Minister for Education and Fine
Arts. Besides the Mai son de la Presse there were unofficial members from
organizations like the Chambre syndicate de la haute couture. Journal
Ofjiciel, 8th March, 1918.
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conference on inter-Allied propaganda. One of the parti-
cipating experts, Mr. Wickham Steed of The Times, writes
that M. Henri Moysset, chief private secretary to the French
Minister of Marine, spoke as a French representative, and
insisted upon the imperative necessity for creating a
“ Thinking General Staff ” to unify the effort exerted by
the Allies in enemy and neutral countries. The Conference
did actually appoint Professor Borghese (Italy), Mr. Steed
and M. Moysset, with the expectation that they would
co-operate in Paris, but jealousy of Moysset is said to have
prevented the full development of the work. 1 The Allies
conducted a formal conference in August, 1918, and their
most successful common venture was a Permanent Inter-
Allied Commission at the Italian G.H. Q.
Although the problem of organizing international pro-
paganda campaigns was not satisfactorily solved in the late
War, the experience of the Allies in certain other projects
was complete enough to reveal sound principles of adminis-
tration. Sir Arthur Salter, who digested his experience;
with the Inter-Allied Shipping Control with such skill, has
generalized the conditions of continuing co-operation upon
executive matters between independent governments.
Contact, and indeed regular j^opJ act, must be established
between the appropriate permanent officials of the several
national administrations. It is important that these
officials should (where possible) continue to exercise \
executive authority in their own departments and, where
geographical reasons prevent this, that they should, at
least, be specialists, and continue to exercise a decisive
influence on them. The officials must enjoy the confidence
of the respective ministers, must keep in constant touch
1 Steed, Through Thirty Years, II : 196.
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26 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
with their policy, must, within a considerable range, be
able to influence their action, and they must have an
accurate knowledge of the limits of their own influence. 1
He declares that they must work together in sufficient
intimacy to develop trust or knowledge of the limits within
which they may trust one another, and that they must
endeavour to develop such relations as will enable them,
without disloyalty to their own governments, to discuss
policy frankly in the earlier stages before it has been for-
mulated in their own countries. The formal authority
may best be supplied by the occasional meeting of the
responsible ministers. Formal meetings of international
representatives ought to be solely for the purpose of rati-
fying agreements already arrived at informally. Even minor
negotiation should never be in the nature of a bargain.
Salter argues that the arrangement which he suggests, is
an appropriate solution of the role of committees in adminis-
tration.
Nothing is so ineffective as a committee which consists
of persons, each of whom has no specialized function and
no personal executive authority, and yet tries to direct
executive action. But if a number of persons, each of
whom has a direct executive authority, which he continues
to exercise in his own special sphere, meet from time to
time, in order to dovetail their common measures and
adjust them to a common plan, and then return to their
departments to put into effect what they have agreed
the committee is an effective instrument of co-operative
action.
Assuming that the problem of co-ordinating inter-ally
propagandas can be satisfactorily disposed of, our attention
1 J. A. Salter, Inter-Allied Shipping Control, p. 237.
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may revert to the problem of domestic organization. Once
agreed that unity should be attained, the issue then arises
as to whether the propaganda organization should seek to
work through the existing diplomatic machinery abroad,
or whether it should assemble separate staffs for that type
of propaganda work. War seemed. to ghnw that
spe ci a l ad hoc agencies should be established abroad, even
though the diplomatic staffs were often resentful of their
new colleagues in the foreign field. Mrs. Vira B. Whitehouse,
for instance, was sent to Switzerland by the Committee on
Public Information. The Legation met her cordially, but,
owing to the vagueness with which her instructions were
defined, refused to give her the recognition. and the facilities
which w,ere indispensable to her work. It was only after a
special trip to Washington that a long and vexatious cam-
paign of polite sabotage was surmounted. 1
The diplomatic service is less likely to possess the type of
personnel necessary to cope with a new and experimental
service, such as propaganda, than an agency whose staff is i
explicitly recruited for the purpose. In some cases, too,
the gum shoe tradition is detrimental to efficiency. The
tactics of the American Committee on Public Information,
which explained its purpose to the neutral government in
whose territory it wished to operate, shocked many diplo-
mats, who were trained in stealthiness.
What about the personnel of the propaganda service ?
The director of each major branch ought to be a man whose
prestige equals that of the policy-determining officials. Now
policy and propaganda should work together, hand and
1 A Year as a Government Agent tells the story.
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*
Xi
• ! glove. General Ludcndorff, whose astute observations on
) ; propaganda have won general recognition, has written that
} j “ Goo d propaganda must keep well ahead of actual political
events. It must act as a pace-maker to policy and mould
public opinion, without appearing to do so.” 1 The worst
thing possible is for the propagandists and the diplomats to
contradict one another openly. As a member of the House
of Commons declared in discussing the problem : “ Nothing
can be more serious than a double voice in our Foreign
Affairs.” *
It is important to give the propag andist a place, not only
in the actual execution of policy, but in the formation .
Policies are not safely formulated without expert information
on the state of that opinion upon which they rely for success.
Those who are occupied with propaganda live under circum-
stances in which the daily balancing and weighing of delicate
currents of public sentiment is their job. Now the full
import of estimates of the state of public opinion cannot be
realized unless they are urged by personalities whose prestige
is at least the equal of those who have the deciding hand in
matters of policy. It is not necessary that the heads of the
propaganda services should formally occupy ministerial
or cabinet posts, but they should have ministerial or cabinet
influence, in fact.
This, I submit, is a legitimate inference from the role
which Lord Northcliffe played in Great Britain. When he
took over the Enemy Propaganda work, he quickly became
aware of the crucial importance of forcing a decision upon
1 See Mcinc Kriegsetinnerungen, pp. 284-313.
• 109 H. C. Deb, 55., col. 987.
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certain hitherto uncertain and contradictory questions of
policy. The British Government had joined others in making
contradictory promises to the Italians, and to the South
Slavs, and it was high time for the obscurity to be dispelled.
He demanded prompt action by the Cabinet, and was so
successful that the scruples of Downing Street and of Italy
were swept aside in time for a great propaganda offensive,
to be launched against the Austro-Hungarian troops, which
had the effect of forcing the postponement of the Piave
offensive .
The offensive was timed for April, 1918, and,
according to Wickham Steed and Sir Campbell Stuart it
was postponed until the end of June, because of the
demoralizing inroads of Allied propaganda on the Southern
Slav regiments.
In the United States it was of no particular importance
that Mr. Creel lacked prestige. The foreign policy of the
country was made by President Wilson, and it happened to
have great propaganda value.
Is it desirable for the leaders of propaganda to be recruited
from among the most powerful newspaper proprietors and
editors ? The selection of such a man is certain to arouse
nasty insinuations in the legislature. After the announce-
ment that a number of editors and proprietors had been
appointed to posts in the British sendee, a member of the
House rose to inquire :
Is it the intention of the Government to " nobble ” every
editor in London ? (The editors of the Express, Times,
Daily Mail, Evening Post, Chronicle and certain other
leading papers were involved.)
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Mr. Austen Chamberlain put the criticism with less brevity
and more wisdom.
As long as you have the owner of a newspaper as a
member of your Administration, you will be held respon-
, sible for what he writes in the newspapers. You would
■ not allow a colleague, not the owner of a newspaper, to go
down and make speeches contrary to the policy of His
Majesty's Government, or to attack men who are seving
His Majesty’s Government. You cannot allow them, in-
stead of making speeches, to write articles or to permit the
articles to be written in their newspapers. My right hon.
Friend and his Government will never stand clear in the
estimation of the public, and will never have the authority
which they ought to have, and which I desire them to have,
until they make things quite clear, open and plain to all
the world and sever this connection with the newspapers. 1
The Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, minimized the
force of tliis objection by directing attention to the fact
that :
the rule which applies to all company directors and pro-
fessional men joining the Government must be applicable
also to newspapermen, and as soon as the two Ministers
were appointed, they gave up all direction of their papers.*
To this, Mr. Chamberlain replied by denying that the
analogy of a private company is applicable to the Press.
If its independence is supposed to have been sacrificed
by the acceptance of Ministerial obligations, then the Press
loses its freedom, and with its freedom Joses its authority.
He deplored certain unfortunate coincidences. After an
attack in the Press upon certain ministerial colleagues :
the Government finds it impossible, thereafter, to retain
in office the officials who are specially attacked, and the
1 103 H. C* Deb, 55., col. 657. * 104 H. C. Deb., 5s.. col. 40.
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people who arc specially associated with those attacks . . .
are shortly thereafter found, in this case, on their
individual merits, and that alone, to be indispensable to
the Government in particular offices . 1
Mr. Lloyd George replied to these insinuations by saying
that he knew there would be a row about these appointments,
and that he was right, hut that he had found that on ly
n ewspapermen could rea lly do the job.
It is true that newspapermen are the most desirable, but
it is not, therefore, necessary to choose one of the biggest
owners and editors. If a less conspicuous man is selected,
he is, however, liable to snubs, as a mere second-rater.
England chose her Hearst to conduct propaganda against
the enemy ; the United States chose a man of tremendous
energy’, but little reputation. Any proprietor who has had
sufficient strength to make his mark has undoubtedly
contracted enough animosities to impair his usefulness, and
the same thing is true of a journalist or editor. The sticking
point is the one to which Mr. Chamberlain referred, and the
humbler journalist is free from objection on this count. It
would, therefore, seem that the balance of the scale on
this particular matter inclines toward the American
practice.
There is no doubt about the superlative qualifications of
newspapermen for propaganda work. The stars in the
propaganda firmament during the world war were mostly
journalists, though there were a few literary men, like H.G.
Wells, and widely travelled and alert historians, like Seton-
Watson. And the journalists who delivered the goods were
1 104 H. C. Deb., 5s . col. 76.
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32 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
not, primarily, the editorial writers. They were men, whose
primary business was reporting or editing the news. North-
cliffe was essentially a reporter, and Steed had spent long
years in the foreign service of The Times.
Newspapermen win their daily bread by telling their
I tales in terse, vivid style. They know how to get over to
j the average man in the street, and to exploit his vocabu-
r lary, prejudices and enthusiasms. As Mr. Spencer Hughes
remarked in the House of Commons, they are not hampered
by what Dr. Johnson has termed " needless scrupulosity."
They have a feeling for words and moods, and they know
that the public is not convinced by logic, but seduced by
stories.
What not to do has been nowhere better illustrated than
in Germany. The Prussian officer who had charge of the
propaganda work for the General Staff was a most sincere
and conscientious gentleman. He had. however, a singular
unfitness for his job, as this story will show'. An American
newspaperman in Berlin had known him for some time.
Shortly after the Allies had created a tremendous uproar
about the execution of Nurse Cavell, the French executed
two German nurses under substantially the same circum-
stances. Not a murmur in the German Press. The
American saw the official shortly afterwards and asked —
Why don't you do something to counteract the British
propaganda in America ?
Why. what do you mean ?
Raise the devil about those nurses the French shot the
other day.
What ? Protest ? The French had a perfect right to
shoot them !
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Which, of course, was probably true, but utterly irrelevant
to propaganda. A Prussian officer simply could not look
at the situation with the naive indignation of an untutored
civilian. But it was civilians whose opinions were ulti-
mately deciding.
Propaganda personnel ought to be recruited from am ong
tf iose who possess intimate knowledge of the group to which
t hey are supposed to ap peal, " Hansi,” whose real name
was Waitz, was an Alsace-Lorrainer, who had fled to France
in the Summer of 1914, to escape punishment at the hands
of the German authorities for his seditious propaganda.
He organized the French propaganda against the Germans,
and his beautiful and highly idiomatic German was buttressed
by a complete knowledge of local allusions. He very pro-
perly lays it down that propaganda should be well written
for whaJfStgr audience it is intended.
Bismarck's ..sense of the important led him to take
infinite" pains in matters of style. Busch, his propaganda
secretary, tells about an article which he read over to
Bismarck.
It was to be dated from Paris, and published in the
Kolnische Zeiiung. He said. “ Yes. you have correctly
expressed my meaning. The composition is good, both as
regards its reasoning and the facts which it contains. But
no Frenchman thinks in such a logical and well-ordered
fashion, yet the letter is understood to be written by a
Frenchman. It must contain more gossip, and you must
pass more lightly from point to point. A Parisian Liberal
writes the letter and gives his opinion as to the posi-
tion of his party toward the German question, express-
ing himself in the manner usual in statements of that
kind." 1
1 Busch. Bismarck. 1 : 8.
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Within recent years there has been a development which
may transform the personnel question in the future. Pro -
paganda has become a profess ion. The modern world is
busy developing a corps of men who do nothing but study
the ways and means of changing minds or binding minds to
their convictions. Propaganda, as remarked in the opening
pages of this study, is developing its practitioners, its pro-
fessors, its teachers and its theories. It is to be expected
that governments will rely increasingly upon the professional
propagandists for advice and aid.
Yet another question of propaganda organization is the
problem of co-ordinating the efforts of central and local
branches of the service. Ambassador Bemstorff complains
of the inadequacy of the material sent to America by the
German in Berlin,
the Press-service (German) never succeeded in adapting
itself to American requirements. The same may be said
of most of the German propaganda which reached America
in fairly large quantities since the third month of the War,
partly in German and partly in not always irreproachable
English. This, like the Press telegrams, showed a complete
lack of understanding of American national psychology.
The American character, I should like to repeat, is by no
means so dry and calculating as the German picture of
an American business man usually represents. The out-
standing characteristic of the average American is rather
a great, even though superficial, sentimentality. There
is no news for which a way cannot be guaranteed through
the whole country, if clothed in a sentimental form. Our
enemies have exploited this circumstance with the greatest
refinement, in the case of the German invasion of “ poor
little Belgium, ” the shooting of the “ heroic nurse,” Edith
Cavell, and other incidents. Those who had charge of the
Berlin propaganda, on the other hand, made very little of
such occurrences on the enemy side, c.g., the violation of
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Greece, the bombing of Corpus Christi procession in
Karlsruhe, etc. One thing that would have exerted a
tremendous influence in America, if its publicity had been
handled with only average skill, was the suffering of our
children, women and old people, as a result of the British
hunger blockade — that they have made no attempt to
bring to the notice of the world. 1
He also complains that Berlin sent arguments instead of
news, — - —
Here was the opinion of the man on the spot. He felt
that the men at the centre were messing their job, His
own anxiety to take advantage of what he calls the “ senti-
mentality " of the American mind, led him to encourage a
movement which was ultimately ruined because the central
authorities failed to support it. Bemstorlf tells the story
thus :
Since the Lusitania catastrophe I had adopted the x
principle, and put it into practice as far as possible, of v
leaving the propaganda to our American friends, who were
in a position to get an earlier hearing than we, and in any
* case understood the psychology of the Americans better
than the Imperial German agents. Indeed, the words
“ German propagandist ” had already become a term of
abuse in America . . . a Citizen’s Committee for Food
Shipments ” was formed, whose activities spread through
the whole country and were avowedly pro-German. A
special function of the committee of Dr. von Mach as
executive chief was a month of propaganda throughout
the country with the object of obtaining the means to
supply the children of Germany with milk. The English
control of the post even led to the bold plan of building a
submarine, to run the milk through the English blockade.
The propaganda was very vigorously attacked by the
greater part of the American Press, but pursued its course
unafraid, collected money, submitted protests to the State
Department against the attitude of the Entente, and so on.
1 My Three Years in America, p. 53.
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Dr. von Mach succeeded in bringing the matter to the
notice of the President, who actively interested himself in
it, and promised to see that the milk should pass the English
blockade and reach Germany in safety. Accordingly, the
State Department instructed the American Embassy in
Berlin to issue a statement. Meanwhile, the well-known
American journalist, McClure, returned from a tour of
investigation in Germany, where he had been supported
in every way by the German Government Departments.
He gave a very favourable account of the milk question,
as of the feeding of infants in general, and this gave rise
to the first disagreeable controversy. McClure took up
an unyielding attitude. Unfortunately, however, the
State Department then published an equally favourable
report, which, coming from the American Embassy and
published with the approval of the Foreign Office in Berlin,
caused the complete collapse of Dr. von Mach. This
incident made a most painful impression in America, and
led to a scries of bitter attacks on Dr. von Mach and the
whole movement, which was thus exposed in a most
unfortunate light. The favourable report on the milk
question was drawn up by a Dr. E. A. Taylor, and
definitely confirmed and, indeed, inspired by the German
authorities. 1
The Ambassador related this incident to discredit the
central authorities, but perhaps greater responsibility rested
on him for pursuing a policy which he had reason to know
was distasteful to those authorities. And in this case the
better reason seems to be on the side of Berlin, for they knew
that to advertise a milk shortage would be to encourage
the tenacious fighting spirit of the Allies and, in particular,
to tighten the economic boycott of Germany. The man on
the spot, Bernstorff, knew the value of a sentimental appeal,
and he was right in this ; but he was unwilling to bend his
1 Bcraslorff, p. 259.
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judgment to that of the central authorities and to refrain
from encouraging a certain type of propaganda, which was
likely to produce more harm than good. This incident
illustrates the necessity for harmonious relations between
the men at the centre and the men at the circumference, for
Bernstorff was right in some particulars, and the central
authorities were right in others. In most cases, Bernstorff
was better advised than Berlin. Harmonious relations
depend upon congenial personnel and can be but slightly
affected by the mechanisms of organization.
While the discussion of propaganda organization had thus
far dwelt upon problems of administration, there is no
question of organization of more interest to the student of
political science than the proper relation between legislative
control and propaganda departments.
P ropaganda is likely to be abused to promote pers onal
and partisan e nds, and the line of distinction between a
private advantage which is incidental to a legitimate public
advantage, and a private advantage which brings no over-
whelming public advantage, is difficult to draw. A member
of the British Parliament once called attention to a laudatory
illustrated biography of the Prime Minister which was
being circulated at public expense as part of British war
propaganda. ‘ Of course, it could be said that confidence
in the Prime Minister was peculiarly necessary to war
moral, and that such an expenditure was fitting and proper.
It could also be said that the tone of the book was too full
of adulation to free it from partisan suspicion.
Mr. Creel once put his foot in it by thanking God that
1 109 H. C. Deb., 5s., col. 978.
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the United States had been unprepared for war. To the
Republicans this seemed to be the baldest possible attempt
to whitewash the Democratic administration, and a fiery
controversy broke out on the floor of Congress. Mr. Rainey
came to the aid of the besieged head of the Committee on
Public Information, by reminding the House that the
Republicans had possessed power for sixteen consecutive
years, right down to the two years before the European
War, and if the Chairman had returned thanks for unpre-
paredness, he was returning thanks for the Republicans
even more than for the Democrats. 1
Sometimes it appears to be in the public interest, for
i
] current facts to be suppressed, but this is liable to the
gravest abuse, for it is also to the interest of those in power,
to suppress facts, in order to avoid criticism. Legislative
bodies look with a suspicious eye upon any evidence of
partisan concealment. During a time when the American
aviation programme was an object of uneasy attention,
certain aeroplane photographs were released by the Com-
mittee on Public Information with sub-titles of this nature :
" Though hundreds have already been shipped, our factories
have reached quantity production, and thousands upon
thousands will soon follow." It was obvious that, if
news of this character was circulated among the American
people, the public would look with impatience upon the
opposition Senators who were condemning the Adminis-
tration for the inadequacy of its aviation policy.* The
Republicans in the Senate turned their heavy artillery on
1 US Cong. Rtc., 65th Cong.. 2nd Sess., p. 4859.
• US, Cong. Bee., 65th Cong., 2nd Sess., pp. 4254 ft.
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the Committee. The Committee claimed to have based its
optimism upon authorized information from the aeroplane
authorities. This appeared to be the truth, but there was
no doubt that the report conveyed an exaggerated idea to
the public.
In another case there was good frima facie evidence
for suspecting that the Naval authorities had used the
Committee to mislead the public. On the fourth of July,
1917, the public was congratulated upon the fact that our
transports had arrived on the other side, although “ twice
attacked by German submarines.” A correspondent of the
Associated Press, who was reported to have been aboard
the transports, sent back a story to the effect that the sea
had been smooth, and the voyage uneventful. Even such
administration organs as the New York Times joined in the
demand for an explanation. The Republicans launched into
a terrific tirade against the Committee, the Navy Depart-
ment and the whole Administration. It eventually appeared
that the transports had gone over in four divisions, and that
two of them had encountered no trouble, but that two had
encountered submarines. 1 Here was a case in which public
sentiment was genuinely disturbed by an apparent fabrica-
tion, and Congress did right in ventilating its suspicions.
But it did so in an insulting manner, which was well cal-
culated to diminish public confidence in the integrity and
competence of those responsible for conducting the War.
As Winston Churchill has agreed, the reasons “ certainly
had weight ”* which moved the censorship to discourage or
1 U.S. Cong. Rec., 65th Cong., 1st Scss., pp. 4811 ff.
1 Winston Churchill. The World Crisis. 1916-18. I : 12.
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forbid the “ writing up " of any general other than the
Commander-in -Chief in France and Britain. But the
unavoidable result was to entrench the Commander-in-Chief
in public esteem when good reason existed for removing
him. The general public in Britain banked upon Kitchener
long after the better informed were aware of the short-
comings of “ Lord K of Chaos.” The French people relied
upon Joffre long after the experts began to take his stolidity
for stupidity and his equanimity for insensitivity. Legis-
latures and cabinets were highly taxe4 in inventing adroit
means of kicking these leaders upstairs, and clearing the
road for more capable chiefs. They had to reconcile the
diverging claims of competence and public confidence.
Still another danger of abusing p ropaganda agencie s lies
in the possibility that public propaganda may be misused
for co mmercial and class purp oses. An attack upon the
British Ministry of Information was made in Parliament by
Mr. Leif Jones, who pointed to suspicious circumstances.
First he gave the business connections of the most prominent
men in the Ministry :
Lord Beaverbrook ... is a director of seven companies
(was said to have withdrawn from active control). ... Mr.
Snagge is Secretary to the Ministry. He is a director of
nine companies, and chiefly interested in rubber. The
Director of Information in Scandinavia and Spain is Mr.
Hambro, a member of the House, a banker, a railway
director. . . . Take the Director of Propaganda for Switzer-
land — Mr. Guinness, who is director of nine companies. . . .
Colonel Bryan, who assists in American propaganda, is
director of six companies, mainly interested in ships and
ship-building. Colonel Galloway, Assistant Director of
Hospitality, is a director of five or six companies. . . . Mr.
Cunliffc Owen is a director of thirty-six companies. I
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understand they are all tentacles of a great tobacco trust,
of which Mr. Cunliffe Owen is vice-chairman. This gentle-
man is placed in charge of propaganda throughout Asia
and the Far East, including Japan.
He then proceeded to the point of his remarks :
I have a record of a very extraordinary film which is
being performed now. . . . The title of the picture was
” Once a Hun, always a Hun.” It first of all depicts two
German soldiers in a ruined town in France. They meet
a woman with a baby in her arms, and strike her to the
ground. The two German soldiers then gradually merge
into two commercial travellers, and are seen in an English
village after the war. One of the travellers enters a
small village general store, and proceeds to show to the
shopkeeper a pan. The shopkeeper at the beginning is
somewhat impressed by what is offered him for sale, when
his wife comes in and, turning the pan upside down, sees
marked on it ” Ma,de in Germany.” She then indulges in
a good deal of scorn at the expense of the commercial
traveller and calls in a policeman, who orders the German
out of the shop. A final notice, flashed on the screen, was
to the effect that there cannot possibly be any more trading
with these people after the war, and under this statement
were the words, " Ministry of Information.” The question
of the policy of trade after the war has got to be decided
by this country, but I hope the Ministry of Information
does not intend to decide it before we have an opportunity
even ol discussing the Government policy , 1
The attack was much more than a bare insinuation that
capitalistic interests had suborned national propaganda.
Tt alleges that the Ministry of Information was committing
the country in advance to a policy which the legislature had
not yet decided upon. The famous pronouncement by
Lord Northcliffe at the end of the War had something of
1 logH. C. Deb., 53., cols. 95 5ft.
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42 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
A - ■*“
the same significance.', Northcliffe was a member of a
committee appointed by the British Cabinet to develop a
formula of peace terms (war aims). He met with the
representatives of the War Cabinet, the Admiralty, the War
Office, the War Aims Committee, and the Official Press
Bureau. The agreed formula was first given out by Lord
Northcliffe in an address before the United States’ officers
in London, on October 22nd, 1918. On the 4th of November
they were published in The Times under the title “ From War
to Peace,” from whence they were reproduced around the
world.
<It is always possible that propaganda will prejudice the
position of a minority group in the community The Irish
members of Parliament protested against the Ministry on
account of some aspects of its American propaganda.
Mr. Devlin declared.
One of the books, which has been published in America,
is called " The Oppressed English,” written by Ian Hay.
This is a book, paid for by the Ministry of information. . . .
Although it has been sent all round America, it has not
been allowed in this country. (It is) a tissue of falsehoods
from beginning to end . 1
Since propaganda agencies on a large scale were novelties
of the last war in democratic countries, the legislative control
of their expenditures was poorly organized at first. The
funds for British propaganda were mostly taken from the
general vote of supply for " His Majesty’s Foreign and other
Secret Services.” The Creel Bureau was at first constituted
by Executive Order and financed from the $100,000,000
1 109 H. C. Deb., 53., col. 1029.
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appropriation granted to the President for the general
promotion of the defence of the country. When the abuse
of the Creel Bureau reached the peak of insinuation and
distrust, Mr. Creel decided to force an investigation by the
•
Appropriations Committee, by applying to Congress for a
specific appropriation. After a hearing, which consumed
three days, the Committee endorsed an appropriation for a
million and ' a quarter dollars, and commended the past
record of the bureau . 1 In the future it will probably be
possible to provide for propaganda work by direct appro-
priation from the beginning.
The legislatures discussed the details of propaganda
administration rather freely during the last War. Mr. T. P.
O'Connor was anxious to remove the vexatious system of
censorship, which had been introduced at the outbreak of
the War, and which had aroused so much opposition from
American newspapermen. In September of 1914 he
declared,
There is no public opinion in the world which ought to
be so well informed with regard to the causes of the War.
or the incidents of this War, or the principles of this War,
as the opinion of the United States of America. ■
Complaints were often made that the British propaganda
was lagging behind the German propaganda in neutral
countries.
Congress was far from reticent in criticmng the work of
the Committee on Public Information. Senator Lodge
uttered a solemn warning against German peace propaganda,
1 H. Doc., No. ii 68, 65th Cong., and Seas. ; U.S. Cong. Rec., 65th Cong.,
and Sess., pp. 7910 ff.
•60 H. C. Deb., 5s., col. 759 -
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44 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
and attacked a book entitled Two Thousand Questions and
Answers about the War, which had been issued by the Com-
mittee with an Introduction by Mr. Creel. An officer
of the National Security League had characterized it as
a “ masterpiece of German propaganda,” and Mr. Lodge
called to it the attention of the Senate. The defence
given by Mr. Creel was that he had written the preface with-
out reading the book, which he received from Mr. Albert
Shaw, who in turn had come into the possession of the
manuscript from an Englishman of undoubted integrity ;
that he had become uneasy about the document when his
attention had been called to certain passages, and was
revising it. 1
On another occasion. Senator Poindexter, who had acted
as something of an atrocity hound during the War, accused
the Committee of defending the Germans because a statement
had been issued under its authority denouncing the story
of an American sergeant, who had been crucified by the
Germans.* Senator Lenroot, of Wisconsin, defended the
Administration, saying :
there was a general inference drawn that that (crucifixion
and similiar atrocities) was a general practice. If it was
not true, I think it is the duty of the War Department to
deny it. The parents of these boys are suffering agonies
enough now, without being led to believe that unspeakable
outrages are being committed upon all of our American
soldiers who may be captured.
The legislative proceedings are full of attacks upon the
personnel of the propaganda services. The tenor of much
1 U.S. Cong. Rec., 65th Cong.. 2nd Scss., pp. 1037 ti.
* Same, pp. 9056 ff.
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of this criticism may be gathered by perusing these Con-
gressional remarks upon Mr. Creel :
Mr. Penrose (Senator from Pennsylvania). I do not see
why we should permit men like Mr. Creel, for instance,
whose scurrilous and defamatory utterances on the Con-
stitution of the United States were read in this body the
other day, to be holding an office and publishing a publicity
chronicle, when he is smeared all over with treason . 1
Mr. Longworth (Representative from Ohio). Mr.
Speaker, if I have any apologies to make to tliis House or
anybody for the opinion that I enunciated about this
man who, the day before yesterday, insulted the patriotism
of the American people, and to-day insults the American
Congress, it is that my language was far too temperate
(applause).*
Mr. Sherman (Senator from Illinois). Congress is
stigmatized as a slum by a public officer created by an
Executive Order, and paid by an appropriation made by
the body he traduces. . . . After this, any servile deputy
candle-snuffer is at liberty to revile us at pleasure. Any
gangrened egotist afflicted with an ingrowing conceit may
hereafter spurn Congress, and demand appropriations to
feed him with the complacent assurance that precedent
now justified everything.*
The immunities of Congress were used so recklessly that
Mr. Creel was led to remark,
The heavens may fall, the earth may be consumed, but
i the right of a Congressman to lie and defame remains
| inviolate . 4
)
Lord Northcliffc and the others in England came in for
the severest censure, but Parliament conducted itself with
more restraint and dignity than Congress.
1 U.S. Cong. Rec., 65th Cong.. 2nd Sess., p. 4827.
a Same, p. 4974. • Same, p. 8990.
4 Creel, How We Advertised America, p. 52.
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46 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
It is abundantly clear from this review of the relations
between legislatures and propaganda bureaux that there is
bound to he ample opportunity for misunderstanding,
criticism and suspicion. Unless the legislature is informed
— «nd critical, the propaganda branches may be perverted to
partisan, personal and class ends ; if the legislature is
superfluously critical, the confidence of the public in its
leaders may be destroyed, and moral impaired. It is
humanly improbable that a satisfactory' middle course can
be steered, since this depends upon the voluntary restraint
of the legislature. The only hope lies in confidential and
informal relations between administrators and legislators,
supplemented by an appeal to publicity when the legislator
can justify such conduct to his own conscience. Personal
explanations at the dinner table, the clubhouse, the lounge,
or the street comer, are the lubricants of the great and
complicated machinery of government. 1
, This completes our survey of the problem of organizing
a war-time propaganda service to influence international
attitudes. The succeeding chapters will outline the nature
of the psychological appeals which appear to be necessary
to accomplish the purpose of such a mechanism — the
instigation of animosity toward the enemy, the preservation
of friendship between allies and neutrals, and the
demoralization of the enemy.
1 The problem of arriving at a financial estimate of what may be accom-
plished by propaganda is broached in a succeeding chapter.
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WAR GUILT AND WAR AIMS
So great are the p syc holo gical r esistances to war in mod em )
nations tha t every war must appear to be a war of de fence j
against a menacing, murdprmi^ agg ressor. There must be
no ambiguiTy^ abbut whom the public is to hate. The war
must not be due to a world system of conducting inter-
national affairs, nor to the stupidity or malevolence of all
governing classes, but to the rapacity of the enemy. Guilt
and guilelessness must be assessed geographically, and all
the guilt must be on the other side of the frontier. If the
propagandist is to mobilize the hate of the people, he must
see to it that everything is circulated which establishes the
sole responsibility of the enemy. Variations from this theme
may be permitted under certain contingencies which we ;
shall undertake to specify, but it must continue to be the
leading motif.
The governments of Western Europe can never be per-
fectly certain that a class-conscious proletariat within the
borders of their authority will rally to the clarion of war.
Before 1914 the growth of the Social Democrats in Germany,
the vogue of anti-patriotism in France, and the rising star
of the labourers in England, filled the governing classes with
foreboding. It was freely predicted that mobilization could
be paralysed by a general strike, and that social revolution
might raise its ominous head.
47
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To the uncertainties of proletarian sentiment must be
added the vagaries of conciliatory opinion. When the crisis
of 1914 arose in Great Britain, it was at once evident that
powerful elements in the Cabinet, the Liberal Party, the
literary and even the financial world were opposed to inter-
vention to aid France. The columns of the Daily News, a
Left Wing Liberal organ, the Manchester Guardian, another
Liberal paper, and the Labour Leader were flooded with
letters, editorials and manifestos of protest against the idea
of British participation in the impending struggle on the
continent.
Let us remember, admonished the Daily News on the
29th day of July
that the most effective work for peace that we can do is
to make it clear that not a British life shall be sacrificed
for the sake of Russian hegemony of the Slav world.
On the following day it wrote that the
free peoples of France. England and Italy should refuse to
be drawn into the circle of this dynastic struggle.
On the first of August, the News published a bitter protest
against the policy of intervention, under the well-known
initials, “ A.G.G." The title was “ Why we must not
fight."
For years under the industrious propaganda of Lord
Northcliffe, Mr. Strachey, Mr. Maxse, and the militarists,
this country has been preached into an anti-German frame
of mind that takes no account of the facts. Where in the
wide world do our interests clash with Germany ? Nowhere.
With Russia we have potential conflicts over the whole of
South-Eastern Europe and Southern Asia.
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The Bishop of London. J. Ramsay MacDonald, Keir
Hardie, Thomas Hardy, J. J. Thomson, Gilbert Murray, and
scores of lesser celebrities protested against British aid to
France and Russia on many different grounds. Most of
these men were not proletarian internationalists, and they
found reasons to object to war on grounds of the national
interests of England. Most of them implied that war might,
under some circumstances, be legitimate, but in the hour of
decision they shrank from believing that the hour had come.
Now, it is hard to conceive of an international complication
in which divergent interpretations of national interest,
nurtured by aversion to war and ruthlessness, will not
precipitate dissent and controversy. O^hc conciliatory frame
of mind is prone to temporize and find good reason for delay.
Certain business and banking interests, when pulled up
short by the prospect of imminent war, tiy to put on the
brakes. That such international bankers as the Speyers
and the Bonns were restraining influences during the first
and second Moroccan crises is generally known. A less
successful instance of such pressure upon those who wield
political power is revealed by Wickham Steed, of the
London Times. In the midst of the crisis in 1914 the
financial editor of that paper, Mr. Hugh Chisholm, was
urgently invited to call upon the head of one of the largest
financial houses in the City. The financier told him flatly
that the pro-war editorials in The Times must cease. They
were hounding the country into war. The City of London
was on the verge of a disaster, such as the world had never
seen. Strict neutrality was the only course for England to
adopt. He produced a message which he had just written
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50 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
to the head of the Paris house of his family, in which the
alarming statement was made that the writer had only a
billion pounds in the Bank of England and £ 800,000 in the
Union of London and the Smith’s Bank with which to meet
engagements, and that the margin about obligations was so
slight that the Paris house must refrain from drawing cheques
or bills upon him. The Times, it may be added, did not
succumb to this pressure, although certain members of the
Cabinet were strongly moved by it. 1
Every resource must be exploited if such inconvenient
currents are to be turned aside. T he identification of a
p articular f oreign nation as the enemy may be established
b y three lines of inferenc e. \ It invariably mobilizes fi rst,
in the days of crisis (either openly or secretly), and commits
acts of war, and by doing so, reveals a criminal anxiety to
press matters to a finish. More than that, it invariably
incriminates itself by endeavouring to manoeuvre our govern-
ment into the position of an aggressor during the feverish
negotiations preceding the final break. Behind all this,
there invariably stands a record of lawlessness, violence and
malice, which offers unassailable proof of a deliberate intent
to maim or destroy us.
A typical bill of indictment is the one drawn up by Le
Petit Journal, one of the “ Big Five " of the Paris Press, on
the 3rd of August. It gave its version of the war under the
heading, " Machiavellian Duplicity.” Germany secretly
connived at the formulation of an unacceptable ultimatum
to Serbia. She perfidiously protested her desire for peace.
She tried to divide the Allies by urging France to apply the
1 Steed, Through Thirty Years, II : 8.
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pressure to Russia which she refused to apply to Austria.
She tried to manoeuvre France into the position of an aggressor
in the eyes of England, by asking France to denounce the
Alliance with Russia, or to declare her willingness to fight
with Russia. Germany opened hostilities against France
and violated French territory before she broke off diplomatic
relations. She violated the neutrality of Belgium in the
face of a solemn promise to protect it. In so doing, she was
acting in complete harmony with her historical traditions of
ruthless and barbarous dealing. Frederick the Great and
the robbery of Maria Theresa are earnests of this.
These indictments come with peculiar weight from his-
torians and from other men who are credited in the public
mind with the single-minded pursuit of truth. German
scholarship leaped to the colours in the last War in the
famous and unforgettable manifesto, signed by ninety-three
of her most illustrious intellectuals. Attached to the docu-
ment were such names as Ehrlich, Behring, Rontgen,
Ostwald, Hamack, Schmollcr, Brcntano, Ncmst, Haupt-
mAn, Sudermann, Eucken, Wundt, Eduard Meyer, Lam-
precht, Wilamowitz, Humperdinck, Reinhardt and Lieber-
mann. Serious historians and journalists combined to
elucidate the responsibility of Germany's enemies in such
co-operative ventures as Zum geschichllichen Verstandnis des
grossen Krtcges by A. O. Meyer, Graf Ernst Reventlow,
R. Nebersberger, C. H. Becker, G. Kiintzel and F. Meinecke
(2 Aufl., Berlin, 1916). The forward policy of Russia in
Europe, since her humiliation in the East at the hands of
Japan, the lust for revenge in France, and the jealousy of
Germany’s expansion by England were the cardinal points
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52 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
in interpreting, the -War. The immediate diplomacy of the
conflict showed that Russia, secretly encouraged by France,
had seized upon the Serbian complication to provoke a
general war. Russia had mobilized first, and had actually
invaded German territory, as, indeed, had the French, before
the severance of diplomatic relations. The envious English,
ostensibly neutral, but bound by secret understandings, had
grasped their opportunity to crush the competitor, whose
naval and commercial supremacy must be forestalled at all
costs of morality and decency.
The crisis burst on France and Belgium with such
paralysing suddenness and such devastating consequences,
that there was little need for elaborate rationalizations about
the instigator of the War. The Germans had to explain
the war in the West, because they were in foreign territory,
and, therefore, prima facie the aggressor. It was in Britain,
^with its territory intact and the issue of war or peace undeter-
mined for many agonizing hours after the die was cast on
the continent, where discussion and rationalization played
an influential part. Masterly appeals to the national interest,
after the style of The Times on 31st July, were necessary to
carry conviction to the more articulate elements of the
community that Germany should be treated as an immediate
and overwhelming menace. It argued :
A German advance through Belgium to the north of
France might enable Germany {o acquire possession of
Antwerp, Flushing, and even of Dunkirk and Calais, which
might then become German naval bases against England.
That is a contingency which no Englishman can look upon
with indifference. But if it is merely a contingency, why
should England not wait until it is realized before acting
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or preparing to act P Because in these days of swift decision
and swifter action, it would be too late for England to act
with any degree of success after France had been defeated
in the North. . . . Even should the German navy remain
inactive, the occupation of Belgium and Northern France
by German troops would strike a crushing blow at British
security. We should then be obliged alone- and without
Allies to bear the burden of keeping up a Fleet superior
to that of Germany and of an army proportionately strong.
This burden would be ruinous.
In the United States, where the issue of war or peace hung
in the balance longer than in Great Britain, the disagreement
over which group of belligerent powers was the enemy drew \
forth an unparalleled mass of rationalizations, suitable for
circulation by the protagonists of either set. The historians
and the other seekers of the truth were no more reticent
than their German colleagues in putting the blame on the
enemy for the calamity of war, once war came. The curious
fact that in such emergencies the truth seekers find different
truths, and that the differences are territorially segregated
according to national boundaries, is once more exemplified
in the Oxford War pamphlets, the Princeton symposium,
or the Chicago war series, when they are placed side by side
with the German literature alluded to above. The facility
with which sincere and dextrous hands may shape cases on
either side of a controversy, leaves no doubt that, in the
future, the propagandist may count upon a battalion of
honest professors to rewrite liistory, to serve the exigencies
of the moment, and to provide the material for him to scatter
thither and yon.
There are, no doubt, profound psychological dispositions,
which facilitate the work of the propagandist in fastening
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war guilt upon the technical enemy. Just what these
tendencies are is a matter of obscurity and dispute, but
perhaps the most ingenious explanation is the one put for-
ward by Baschwitz, who describes the mind of the publi c
as in conflict between the disagreeable fact of war and t he
wish to believe that the good is triumphant in the universe.
It must, therefore, be that one’s own nation is vindicating
the right against the wrong. 1 Speculations of this sort are
hazardous in the extreme, and the propagandist is content
to accept the aid of his anonymous allies, while he busily
multiplies the evidence of the responsibility of the enemy.
He instigates or welcomes such a windfall as accrued to the
cause of the Entente in the last War, when an eloquent
volume, J'accuse (Lausanne, 1915), came from the pen of
Richard Grelling, a native of Switzerland and close student
of Germany. He bestirs himself to counter-attack against
such telling thrusts, as did the Germans who brought
Grelling’s son, Kurt, to publish Anti-J’accuse at Zurich, in
1916. He scans the horizon for new material as the War
evolves, as did the Germans when they scrutinized the cap-
tured Belgium archives for material, which might incriminate
the Entente, and broadcasted everything which seemed to
do so.
Now the task of the propagandist is just begun, when he
fastens the guilt of willing the War upon an opposing nation.
“No sooner is the enemy located than the nation discharges
its energies, churned in the crucible of hours and days of
suspense, in instantaneous movements of defence and counter-
attack. In the very act of delivering the blow the nation-
4 See Baschwitz. Det Massenwahn, passim.
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calls for unity and victory. It is the business of the propa-
gandist to amplify and repeat the call.
As early as the 29th of July, 1914, the London Times
called upon all parties to " Close Ranks.” The Kaiser
united his people behind him, when he declared that he
knew no party more. The Fascio came in Italy and the
" Union sacrte " was proclaimed in the French Parliament.
The sensational appeal of Gustave Herv6 to the ranks of
Labour was broadcasted far and wide. Herv6 was a notorious
sans-patric who had belittled patriotism as an implement
of capitalistic exploitation. On the very brink of the War
he changed the name of his paper. La Guerre Sociale, into
La Victoire and pleaded with all the ardour of his fervent
spirit for unity :
Amis socialistes, amis syndicalistes, amis anarchistes,
qui n’etes pas seulement l'avant-garde idealiste de l’huma-
nitd ; mais qui £tes encore le nerf ct la conscience dc l’arm6e
fran<;aisc, la patric cst en danger !
La patrie de la Revolution est en danger !‘
The call of the Empire — “ Your King and Country calls
you ” — buried the hatchet in Ireland and brought recruits
from all over the British dominions. The work of the
Overseas League and the Victoria League in strengthening
the ties of friendship and affection was vindicated. In
order to illustrate the unity of the Empire, a number of
profusely illustrated volumes were put out, showing the
history of British beneficence and the degree of Empire
co-operation at the front. There is India and the War, for
example, edited with an introduction by Lord Sydenham
1 La Guerre Sociale. July 31, 1914.
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•( T 9 T 5)» which glorifies British rule in India, and has page
after page of coloured pictures, showing Indian regiments
in native uniforms.
The call to unity is essentially a call to history, and the
memory of a common past has powerful sentimental value.
La Libre Parole for the second of August, 1914 , thus
admonished its readers :
Ilaut les cocurs ! La France de Jeanne d’Arc, de Louis
XIV et de Napoleon, la France de Bouvines, de Valmy,
de Jena, et de Montmirails n’a rien perdu de scs antiques
vertus.
None of the sentiments which are deeply imbedded in
the social tradition can afford to be neglected in justifying
belligerent idealism through murder and hate. To the
historical may he usually added the religious vocabulary.
Never have these chords been strummed with greater
dramatic sense than by Kaiser William II., as he looked
over the surging throng in the Lustgarten on that epochal
July night and said :
A fateful hour has fallen for Germany.
Envious peoples everywhere are compelling us to our
just defence.
The sword has been forced into our hands. I hope that
if my efforts at the last hour do not succeed in bringing our
opponents to see eye to eye with us and in maintaining
peace, we shall with God’s help so wield the sword that we
shall return it to the sheath again with honour.
War would demand of us enormous sacrifices of property
and life, but wc should show our enemies what it means
to provoke Germany.
And now I commend you to God. Go to church and kneel
before God and pray for his help and for our gallant
army.
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Even such exuberance of sentiment as the Credo for
France, prepared by M. Henri Lavcdan, has its place :
I believe in the courage of our soldiers and in the skill
and devotion of our leaders. I believe in the power of
right, and in the crusade of civilization, in France, the
eternal, the imperishable, the essential. I believe in the
reward of suffering and the worth of hope. I believe in
confidence, in quiet thought, in the humble daily round, in
discipline, in charity militant. I believe in the blood of
wounds and the water of benediction ; in the blaze of
artillery and the flame of the votive candle ; in the beads
of the rosary. I believe in the hallowed vows of the old,
and in the potent innocence of children. I believe in
women's prayers, in the sleepless heroism of the wife, in
the calm piety of the mother, in the purity of our cause, in
the stainless glory of our flag. I believe in our great past,
in our great present, and in our greater future. I believe
in our countrymen, living and dead. I believe in the
hands clenched for battle, and in the hands clasped for
prayer. I believe in ourselves, I believe in God. I believe,
I believe.’
This sort of verbal delirium is capable of very rema rkable
thing s, as when Albert de Mun, the venerable Catholic
leader, solemnly implored God to " aid the sons of Clovis,"
alluding to one of the barbarous teutonic chieftains of early
French history. 1 Graceful phrasemongers like Maurice
Barres, who believed the spirit of France to be a " grave
enthusiasm, a disciplined exaltation," can be trusted to
furnish volatile w'ords acceptable to less religious minds.
For the preponderating majority in any community the I
business of beating the enemy in the name of security a nd 1
peace suffice s. This is the great war aim, and in single- (
1 Translated in John Buchan. History of the War. Chapter XXII.
* Lt Gaulois, August 5, 19*4-
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hearted devotion to its achievement they find that “ peace-
fulness of being at war,” of which Principal Jacks once
wrote. 1 In 1915, he glanced back over the first twelve
months of the Great War, and observed that “ the life of
Great Britain has been acquiring a unitary aim of purpose.
The aim itself is warlike ; but it has been attended with
some increase of mental peace.” He cast a jaundiced eye
upon the pre-war world and wrote, “ Regarded from the
moral point of view, the scene was one of indescribable
confusion. It was, in fact, a moral chaos. Our * inner
state,' in consequence, was marked by profound unrest.”
People were once uncertain of life, but now they had found a
mission. The propagandist, indeed, can always count upon
the state of mind which is here so gracefully expressed.
Men with uncongenial spouses, wives with uncongenial
husbands, youths with suppressed ambition, elderly men with
their boredoms and faint yearnings for adventure, childless
women and some wifeless men, the discredited ones who pine
for a fresh deal in the game of life ; all, and many more,
find peace from mental fight in the intoxication of life in
o ne historical hour and for one hi storic goal.
This simple cry for unity and victory (with accompanying
peace) is not enough. What form shall the victory take ?
There are inquiring minds who push behind the formula
of victory and seek to prescribe what shall be meant thereby.
I ndeed the whole function of war aims is
a nd to fortify the resolution of the commu nity to overcome
every resistance to fulfilment. Tfie enemy must be made to
a ppear as more than a menace to the social herita ge ; the
1 New Republic, September 11, 1915.
i
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eaflj ftv is an obstacle to_the realization of new nationals
values. For the diplomatically-minded the war may become!
a war to expand the national influence in terms of lands
and concessions and ports. This section of opinion in Ger- J
many gorged itself upon visions of a humiliated Britain, u
shorn of her fleet, and upon dreams of a partitioned France
and Russia. In Britain the most popular war aim among
these circles was the scrapping of the German Navy. For
the French Victory meant the restoration of Alsace
Lorraine, and the partition of Germany.
But the propagandist must never permit himself to forget
that in the complex communities of our time there are
minds who find no peace in war. Graham Wallas testified
not for himself alone, when he commented on Professor Jacks’
article and said, “ I should choose the unrest of thought be-
cause I desire that the war should come to an end the instant
its continuance ceases to be the less of two monstrous evils,
and because I believe that our national policy should, even
during the fighting, be guided not only by the will to con-
quer, but also by the will to make possible a lasting peace."
Here is the mind for which war is a loathsome
abomination, and which steadfastly refuses to believe that
the defeat of a particular enemy is enough to make it worth
getting on with. The primitive man, overtaken by
catastrophe, hunts high and low for a scapegoat and a
messiah. The scapegoat is the person who got him into
the mess and the messiah is the person who. will get him
out. History is the story of the struggle of devils and
deliverers. This primitive pattern of thought leads to the
interpretation of war as the struggle between a good and a
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bad collective person. Cleave to the good and punish the
bad. Such a formulation is by no means acceptable to the
sophisticated few, who have come to believe that persons
(individual or “ collective ”) act as they do, because of the
tenacious grip of circumstances. If things have gone
badly in the past, the explanation is to be found in impersonal
forces. If it is hoped to produce better behaviour in the
future, some fundamental forces must be adjusted. It is
no good wreaking vengeance for the past ; it is only pro-
fitable to take precautions for the future and to modify the
conditions which have played havoc with the past.
The propagandist who deals with this new pattern of
thought must be subtler than when he copes with the
punitive pattern of mind. If the adherents of the former
\ are to join in condemning the enemy, i t must be beca use
allegiance is to be won for the war, they must be furnished
with war aims of a highly rationalized and idealistic type.
Propaganda of this sort played a decisive role in the late
struggle for world supremacy, and the reasons are evident.
If we examine the currents of public opinion in England
during the weeks immediately preceding the crisis of 1914,
we cannot fail to remark the numerous signs of specifically
anti-war agitation. In the London Daily News for the 15th
of July an editorial was printed under the title, the " Octopus
of Militarism,” which declared the business of the armament
makers to be
cosmopolitan in its operations and soulless in its motives.
It works upon the fears and hates of ignorant people, uses
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the Press as the instrument of its purposes, and makes tools
of the diplomats and statesmen, many of whom are finan-
cially interested in its success.
A few days later it addressed itself to the subject again,
asking
Why has the one (the duel) been abolished, and the other
(war) left ? There is only one answer — that there is money
in armaments and no money to speak of in duelling.
During the same weeks the new book by H. N. Brailsford,
called The War oj Steel and Gold, was running the gamut of
the reviews. Polemic had not yet subsided over Norman
Angell’s thesis in The Great Illusion . l The quiet influence
of John A. Hobson and of many other publicists in Liberal
and Labour ranks helped to drive home the economic
interpretation of war. Their writing was less tinctured by
doctrinaire formulas than the corresponding work on the
continent.
If anything, the socialists of France and Germany were
more vociferous than the English in denouncing war and
war-makers. But when the crucial moment came, the
evidence of the . culpability of the enemy was so over-
whelming, that they joined the War. This decision split
the Social Democrats in Germany, and left a discontented
fraction in France, and as the War wore on, the discomforts
of combat favoured the recovery of the old uncompromising
attitude. The Socialist and Democratic papers in Germany
became thorns in the side of the Imperial Government. A
similar evolution went forward in France. Such Liberal
1 See, incidentally, his forcible letter in the Times of August x, 1914,
against intervention.
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elements as those associated with the personalities of Leon
Bourgeois and Estoumelles de Constant were allied to the
workers in their very keen regret at the turn of affairs, and
after the first shock of battle wore away, a certain recovery
set in, much as it had in Germany.
While concessions were actually made to this type of
sentiment in France and Germany, it was in England and
in America that the most notice was taken of it. In both
countries there was a period of hesitation before battle.
H. G. Wells may be taken as an example of the pacifist ically
inclined Liberal, more gracefully articulate than most, whose
support of the War came at the cost of inner struggle, and
whose enthusiastic aid in a prolonged contest depended upon
an elaborately rationalized cluster of war aims. Writing in
the London Daily Chronicle for August 20th, 1914, he said :
A war that will merely beat Germany a little and restore
the hateful tension of the last forty years isnot worth waging.
As an end to all our efforts it will be almost an intolerable
defeat. Yet unless a body of definite ideas is formed and
promulgated now things may happen so.
•' w,
Wells, of course, saw in “ German militarism ” one of the
most colossal obstacles to the achievement of a better
world order. His attitude of mind is precisely the one to be
striven for by the inventor of war aims ; set up an ideal
I which will arouse the enthusiasm of those elements in the
nation whose support is desired, and make it clear to them
that the chief immediate stumbling block is the military
enemy. This permits the scrupulous to kill with a clean
conscience ; or, at least, to admonish the younger to do so.
"•When the Bolsheviki published the diplomatic correspon-
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dence which they found in the archives of the Tsar’s govern-
ment after the second revolution, a most embarrassing
situation confronted the Allied Statesmen. For the Bol-
sheviki revealed for the first time to the world that the
Allied governments had carved up large blocks ol the world
and raffled them off to one another. This raised some very
disconcerting questions for those who had been talking
about this War as different from every other war, since it
was a war to end war and to make the “world safe for
democracy. By treaties signed in 1915, and subsequently,
the possessions of the enemy powers were allotted to their
future owners, without so much as a pretence at plebiscite
or international control. In spite of the efforts of the Allied
governments to suppress the knowledge of these incriminating
documents in Great Britain, word soon reached the British
labour leaders, and they bestirred themselves to force a
show-down from the government. Mr. Lloyd George made
a sensational speech on the fifth of January, 1918, in which
he came out four-square for a peace acceptable to the
conciliatory elements of the public. The secret history of
this speech was not generally known until the publication
of Woodrow Wilson’s papers after the War. Among them
is published a secret cablegram from Balfour, British
Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the American State Depart-
ment. Here is the despatch :
Following for information of the President, private and
secret : —
Negotiations have been going on for some time between
the Prime Minister and the Trade Unions. The main
point was the desire of the Government to be released from
certain pledges which were made to the Labour leaders
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earlier in the War. This release is absolutely indispensable
from the military point of view for the development of
man power on the Western Front. Finally the negotiations
arrived at a point at which their successful issue depended
mainly on the immediate publication by the British Govern-
ment of a statement setting forth their war aims. This
statement has now been made by the Prime Minister. -It
is the result of consultations with the Labour leaders as well
as the leaders of the Parliamentary opposition.
Under these circumstances there was no time to consult
the Allies as to the terms of the statement agreed upon
by the Prime Minister and the above-mentioned persons.
It will be found on examination to be in accordance with
the declarations hitherto made by the President on this
subject.
Should the President himself make a statement of his
own views which in view of the appeal made to the peoples
of the world by the Bolsheviki might appear a desirable
course, the Prime Minister is confident that such a state-
ment would also be in general accordance with the lines of
the President’s previous speeches, which in England as
well as in other countries have been so warmly received by
public opinion. Such a further statement would naturally
receive equally warm welcome. 1
A point to be remembered by the working propagandist
is that Liberal and middle-class people are likely to give t heir
apprniml to w^ r aims of a political or jur isfir character,
i The Labour ideology is more or less coloured by philosophies
; of economic determination which wound the property
\ sentiment of the possessing classes. If the problem of
v reconstructing the world is to be shorn of an apparent class
bias, it must be conceived as a problem of a politico-juristic
nature, for talk about world legislatures and courts tends
to ingratiate itself where proposals for the administration
* R. S. Baker, Woodrow Wilson and the World Settlement, I : 40.
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of raw materials by world action, and for the use of the
* *
world taxing power . to level , up existing inequalities of
opportunity, are suspect. Phrases like “ World Organiza-
tion,” " The United States of the Earth,” 1 " The Confedera-
tion of the World,”* “ A World Union of Free Peoples,” or
• /
” A League of Nations,” slide trippingly from the tongue.
A war to vindicate international law thus has the sanction
of bourgeois morality about it and avoids anything which
tinges of a class issue. In the last War this idea figured
heavily. Those who were arguing for British participation
in the War, on grounds of national self-interest (vide The
Times) chucked this article of faith out of the window, and
transformed the War into a holy crusade for the Law of
Nations when the news came that the Germans were
marching into Belgium. The French organized a Committee
for the Defence of International Law, headed by M. Louis
Renault, of the Institute. The Germans were staggered by
this outburst of affection for international law in the world,
but soon found it possible to file a brief for the defendant.
The cross-bill alleged that Belgium had not really been neutral,
for the papers captured in her archives had revealed secret
military conversations with the French and the British.
The British, moreover, were reckless of the law of contraband
and were invading the rights of neutrals on the high seas.
The Germans, therefore, discovered that they were really
fighting for the freedom of the seas and the rights of small
nations to trade, as they saw lit, without being subject to
1 See August Ford’s pamphlet, Die Vereiniglen Slaalen der Erde, Bern u.
Lausanne, iqi 4/15.
* Sec Louis Junod, La confederation mendiale : Une alliance pour Vunifi-
cation d . pcuples. Gen 6 ve, 1914.
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the bullying tactics of the British fleet. The Allies had
already declared a war for the liberation of oppressed
peoples, by which they understood at first no more than
Belgium and Alsace and Lorraine. Later, the implications
of this phrase were extended to cover the nationalities in
the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Poles in Germany.
The Germans replied by saying that they, too, were fighting
to liberate the oppressed, and, by this, they meant Ireland,
Egypt and India.
A propagandist must always be alert to capture the
holy phrase which crystallizes public aspiration about it,
and under no circumstances permit the enemy to enjoy
its exclusive use and wont. There are some holy p hrases
wh ich have subversive connotations, unless they are promp t ly
inte rpreted in a broad sense. When the members of the
Union of Democratic Control in Great Britain began to say
that they wanted the War to end secret diplomacy and to
democratize foreign policy, they were talking about con-
ditions in England as much as about conditions elsewhere.
But the phrase was caught up by astute men, and turned
into a criticism of the enemy. 1 It is the business of idealistic
war aims to be invidious at the expense of the enemy.
Should there be a next general war, war aims of an
idealistic character will probably be just as important as
1 The Union of Democratic Control was organi2ed in England by E. D.
Morel. A. Ponsonby, and several others shortly after the outbreak of the
War. It was instigated by indignation at the fact that the British Cabinet
had secretly entered into engagements on the side of France which consti-
tuted in fact a commitment in advance to join in the War against a suppos-
edly attacking Germany. It is interesting to note that the Bund Neues
Vaterland, which was organized about the same time in Germany, spoke
exactly the same language, and was quite unaware that the Union of
Democratic Control in England was in existence.
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they were in the last one. International organizations are still;
so weak that at least one other war could be fought on th/
pretext of strengthening them. Should the existing League
stigmatize any group of nations, there is no question that
this group would be the target of a very dangerous idealistic
propaganda. It should have little trouble, however, in
explaining to the satisfaction of its own people, at least, that
it is fighting for a more elevated conception of public right
than its enemies.
So much for the war aims intended to appease t he scrup les '•
of a Li beral conscien ce. Another class of war aims of a \ "j
general character, can reach a wider constituency. ThejV
collective egotism, or ethnocentrism, of a nation, makes it w
possible to interpret the war as a struggle f or the protectio n
a nd propagation of its own high type of civilization. When a
nation is engaged in battle with a people whose technological
equipment is less destructive than its own, this form of
self-flattery is obviously founded upon clear differences.
The “ Whiteman’s burden " has been carried lightly on the
shoulders of the British in India and Africa, and of the
Americans in Cuba and the Philippines. But at first sight
it would appear paradoxical that a war between nations of
Western Europe should also assume the form of a war to
save civilization. Their similarities are so much more
fundamental than their differences that a visitor from
another planet would undoubtedly bracket them together.
The explanation is to be found in the rise of literacy. NJ
Literacy and elementary instruction have opened the cul-
tural heritages of the nation to a larger portion of the com-
munity than ever before. It was the "Yellow Press," which
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popularized the idea in every country, but it was the wise
men who used their acumen to prove it. On the 8th of
August, 1914. the London Evening Standard shouted
“ Civilization at Issue,” and the theme reverberated ever
after. ” Guerre contre les barbares,” was simultaneously
declared in France, while in Germany, the defence and nur-
ture of Kultur became a duty and privilege of all good
Germans. The consensus of German opinion is set out in
a swollen flood of print, from which the following worthy
specimens may be culled :
Karl Lamprecht, Krieg und Kultur (Leipzig, 1914).
Otto von Gierke, Krieg uni Kultur (Berlin, 1914).
Eugen Kuhnemann, Vom Weltreich des deuischen Geistes
(Munchen, 1914).
Oskar Fleischer, Vom Kriege gegen die deutseke Kultur
(Frankfurt, 1915).
Ernst Troeltseh, Der Kulturkrieg (Berlin, 1915).
In this list appear, among lesser luminaries, the foremost
jurist and two of the most brilliant historians of the world.
They were all convinced that the traditional Germany of
philosophers and poets (Denker uni Dichter) had of late
added unto it,( the practical gifts of political sagacity,
exemplary fecundity, unremitting industry and monumental
research, all of which compared more favourably with the
atheism, sterility and giddiness of the decadent Latins, not
to mention those sordid sportive, dawdling British. A
brilliant example of this sort of thing is the volume called
Handler und Helden, by Werner Sombart, the distinguished
authority on modem, capitalism. The title of the book
explains its animus : Traders and Heroes. The former
are the British and the latter are the Germans, He advances
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the thesis that every war may be analysed into a war of
beliefs. The present War is a struggle between the sordid
British and the self-sacrificing, loyal, courageous and
obedient Germans. The Englishman is incredibly narrow,
utterly incapable of rising above the “ realities " of the
moment, as a glance at their philosophers from Bacon to
Spencer will prove. To the trader life is but a series of
bargains, and even science is commercialized. The whole
empire is a great trading enterprise and the empire’s wars
are wars of pecuniary calculation. The Germans will never
be conquered by this damning taint of commercialism, and
their spirit will stamp it from the world. The war is a war
of German Kultur, which must not be denied and cannot be
denied by the trader.
The war c an likewise be a war of ra ce. Not only did the
Germans of certain strata declare a war of Kultur, but they
declared a war of race, and in this they were joined by certain
elements elsewhere. The elements of the extreme right in
France cherished the myth of a pure Gallic race, and La
Croix, in its issue for August 15th, 1914, found that the
heroic exertions of war are the
ancient 61an of the Gauls, the Romans and the French
resurging within us. The Germans must be purged from
the left bank of the Rhine. These infamous hordes must
be thrust back within their own frontiers. The Gauls of
France and Belgium must repulse the invader with a deci c ’ve
blow, once and for all. The race war appears.
Urbain Gohier published La race a parU at Paris in 1915.
While war aims of this species are certain of a general j
vogue, they need re-cnforccments of a more tangible and \
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( intimate kind. The nation as a whole, is divisible into an
( almost infinite number of constituent groups, which are in
l possession of special aspirations of their own. The war
. ought to be interpreted to them as something in which they
• have a stake, not only as members of the general group.
The war ought to be fought to save business, family and
church, and to add to prosperity, security and faith. Each
interest should be encouraged to formulate war aims which
point to the enemy of all who is, in fact, quite as much the
enemy of each.
■ For the sake of the business men the war must appear
w • as a profitable .enterprise. L. G. Chiozza Money, M.P.,
published a statement in the London Daily Chronicle for
August ioth, 1914, which is a pattern for this sort of thing.
He wrote :
Our chief competitor both in Europe and outside it will
be unable to trade, and at the conclusion of the War the
unmistakable antagonism which German aggression is
everywhere arousing will help us to keep the trade and
shipping we will win from her.
Sidney Whitman published a pamphlet, called The War
on German Trade. Hints for a Plan of Campaign (London,
1914). Meanwhile, the economic groups of Germany
swarmed with visions of tangible expansion in every
direction. The Bund der Landwirte, der Deutsche Bauem-
bund, der Vorort der christlichen Bauernvereine, der Zen-
tralverband deutscher Industrialer, der Bund deutscher
Industrialer, and der Rcichsdeutsche Mittelstandverband,
joined in a monster petition on May 20th, 1915, to the
Chancellor, in which they explained what they wanted.
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The annexationist claims were : the whole of Belgium,
Northern France to a line established from the mouth of the
Somme straight eastward to the Belgian boundary, along
the Maas, to its juncture with the Mosel in the Pagny-Toul
region, thence through Luneville east, along the Vosges
to Belfort. The Departments of Pas de Calais and du Nord,
half the Meuse Department, the greatest part of Meurthe and
Moselle, part of Vosges and the Territory of Belfort, were
thus contemplated additions to Germany. In the East
a part 'of Livland, the largest and most densely inhabited
part of Kurland, most of the Kovno district, the entire
district of Suwalki, half of Lomza, all of Ploczk, a small
slice of the Marschau district, half of Kalisch, a fourth of
Pietrokoc, a small piece of Kielce — a total of 80,000 square
kilometers, and five million people — were the annexationist
claims. Adding this to the 50,000 square kilometers and the
eleven million people demanded in the West, it appears that
the German industrial and agrarian organizations were
committed to the incorporation of 130,000 square kilometers
and sixteen million non-Germans into the Imperial juris-
diction. The inhabitants of these areas were to be deprived
of any political participation in the internal politics of Ger-
many, and the large and middle-sized properties were to be
transferred to German citizens at the cost of the defeated
opponents of Germany.
Since the flaming vocabulary of religion still has the power
to move the hearts of many men, it is a poo r propagand ist
who neglects the spiritual and ecclesiastical interpretati on
of the War by the spokesmen of every sect. Each religious
body must be brought to see in the discomfiture of the
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enemy, a triumph for its gods and priests and dogmas.
Copious examples of the formulas which are appropriate
to this end are to be found in the religious Press of every
belligerent country. La Croix, the organ of the French
clericals, identified the progress of France in the late War
with the Kingdom of God. Writing in the feverish days of
August, 1914, shortly after the alleged capture of Mulhouse
by the French, it shouted,
The story of France is the story of God.
Long live Christ who loves the Franks ! l
The Holy War, " La Guerre sainte,” had been proclaimed
the day before by L'Echo de Pans, when it reported how
waves of spontaneous applause had broken out during
solemn services at the Madelaine. La Croix published an
interpretation of the War on August 15th. It is first of all
a war of revenge, this revenge which we have desired for
43 years.
It is a colossal
duel between the Germans against the Latins and the Slavs.
It is a contest of
public morals and international law.
And, as a final climax,
Is it not a war of Catholic France against Protestant
Germany ?
The Catholics of France were so zealous in the prosecution
of the War that they aroused the suspicion of the radical
1 " L'histoire de France est l'histoire de Dieu.
Vive le Christ qui aime Ics Francs ! " August 8.
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elements in the country and quite a controversial literature
sprang up. The pamphlet, Les cures ont-ils voulu la guerre ?
(Did the priests want war?), precipitated an acrimonious
controversy. 1
The German Catholics bitterly resented the attempt of
the French clericals to monopolize the War. A literary
relic of this dispute is the volume of able essays edited by
Georg Pfcilschifter, Deutsche Kultur, Katholizismus uni
Weltkvieg. Eine Ahrwehr its Buches “ La Guerre allemande
el le catholicisme.” (Freiburg, 1916.)
T he churches of practically every description can be relie d |
u pon to bless a popular war, and to see in it an opportunity
for the triumph of whatever godly design they choose to
further. Some care must, of course, be exercised to
facilitate the transition from the condemnation of wars in
general, which is a traditional attitude on the part of the
Christian sects, to the praise of a particular war. This may
be expedited by securing suitable interpretations of the war
very early in the conflict by conspicuous clericals ; the
lesser lights will twinkle after. It was of some advantage
to the war party in Britain to have such a statement as the
following, from the Bishop of Hereford :
Such a war is a heavy price to pay for our progress toward
the realization of the Christianity of Christ, but duty calls,
and the price must be paid for the good of those who arc to
follow us. That better and happier day when the people
now under militarist rule shall regulate their own life is
doubtless still so far away that an old man like myself
can hardly hope to see it dawning, but amidst all the
* Fdouard Poulain. Refutation decisive (i, globale, 2. d/tailUe) ; onxt
rumeurs injlammia iur le olctgi fvanfais (Paris, 1 916) ; Paul Fcron-Vrau,
Les catholxqius el la presst.
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74 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
burden of gloom and sorrow which this dreadful war lays
upon us we can at least thank God that it brings that
better day a long step nearer for the generation in front of us. 1
The patriotic chorus of the gentlemen of the cloth in
Germany reverberates again through the pages of the antho-
logy prepared by Professor Bang during the War, and called
Hurrah and Hallelujah ! (New York, 1917.) Bang was a
Danish professor of theology and took the pains to collect
some of the German gems. Pastor Traub, P. de Lagards,
and scores of other clericals unwittingly contributed to this
book. All of it seems to be the grossest blasphemy to the
enemies of Germany and the sincerest reverence to the
friends of the German cause. Only the Liberal minority
protests in Germany or elsewhere against the outpourings in
its own behalf. *
, The number of possible re-interpretations of a war is
limited only by the number of special interests whose
^allegiance is offered or sought. To the economic and
ecclesiastical groups already referred to could be added a
constellation of artists, scientists, teachers, or sportsmen
without end. The members of the talkative professions
(preachers, writers, promoters) depend for a living upon their
capacity to arouse an emotional response in the breasts of
their clientele. When the public is wanned up to fight, the
clerical who treats the matter coldly is committing suicide,
just as is the writer or the promoter. The circularity of
response is established, for one interstimulates the other.
The actor is the slave of his audience, though the audience
is bound in temporary servitude to the actor.
Promoters can be relied upon to re-interpret the war aims
1 London Times, August 12, 1914.
* See Hans Fulster, Ktrche und Krieg. Heft 8 in Kultur und Zeitfragen
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of the groups with which they are identified. Thus certain
musical promoters discovered that the War was really a
war between German and British music. As Isidore de
Lara wrote :
The hour has come to put aside and to veil with crape
the scores of the men who have crystallized in so unmis-
takeable a manner the spirit of the modern Huns. . .
The future belongs to the young hero who will have the
courage to exclude from his library all the works of Handel,
Mendelssohn, Wagner, Brahms and Richard Strauss . . .
who will draw from the depths of his own being tone
pictures of all that is beautiful in the wonderful poetry of
Great Britain, and find the vigorous rhythms that will
tell of the dauntless spirit of those who go to death singing
“ Tipperary." 1
Under the stress of war the nurses of the scrawny infant
known as “ Opera in English," were able to procure 'solid
nourishment for their charge. To them, opera in German
was a profanation, and the " Ring ” was pronounced with
the accent of Belgravia or not at all.
Certain American educators took advantage of the War
to gather steam behind their pet projects of educational
reform. The baneful influence of the German common
school model upon American education was held up for
universal execration, and the war for these educators
became a sort of crusade to make the world safe from the
volksschule and for the Junior High School. 1
1 “ English music and German masters.” Fortnightly Review, 103 : 847-853.
' Friedrich Schdncmann in Die Kunst Jer Massenbeeinflussung in den
Vereintglen Staaten von Atnerika. Berlin and I,eipzig. 1024. shows how
every agency was mobilized to carry propaganda in the United States
during and directly after the War. The school, the church, the women's
club, the newspaper, the movie, the business club, the Ku Klux Klan, the
American Defense Society, the National Security League, the American
Legion, the “hereditary" patriotic societies (Sons of the American
Revolution, etc.) all played their active part. Although the book is written
in evident bitterness of spirit, it is an excellent piece of pioneering. This
study avoids duplication as much as possible.
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76 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Over in Germany the tailors and dressmakers declared
war upon the immoral fashions of decadent Paris and
perfidious London. No longer was the matchless frame
of the Fraulein to appear ridiculous in the simpering fluffs
of Paris. She must be free and independent of the passing
whims of Parisian mistresses.
I n short, the active propagan dist is c e rtain to h ave willing
help from everybod y, with an axe to grind in transforming
t he War into a march toward wh at ever sor t of a promised
land happens to appeal to the group concerned. The
more of these sub-groups he can fire for the War, the more
• powerful will be the united devotion of the people to the
cause of the country, and to the humiliation of the enemy.
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SATANISM
When the public believes that the enemy began the War
and blocks a permanent, profitable and godly peace, the
propagandist has achieved his purpose. But to make
assurance doubly sure, it is safe to fortify the mind of the
nation with examples of the insolence and depravity of the S
enemy. Any ^nation who began the War .and blocks the
peac e is incorrigible, wicked and -perverse. To insist
directly upon these qualities is merely a precaution, and
its chief effect is to make it more certain that the enemy
could be capable of so monstrous a thing as an aggressive
war. Thus, by a circularity of psychological reaction the rc
guilty is the satanic and the satanic is the guilty. 1
The themes to be selected for emphasis depend upon the
moral code of the nation whose animosity is to be aroused.
But there are certain common denominators which can be
counted upon to work in any situation. The opposinj^atijmis
nearly always demonstrably overbearing and contemptuous.'
The French Press was full of scornful thrusts at the pre-
sumptuous " Herrenvolk ” just across the Rhine. These
insolent and ridiculous people even took for their name a
word “ Allemagne," which, literally transcribed, is supposed
to mean “ all people 1 ” “ Deutschland iiber alles ” pro-
voked exactly the same indignation in Downing Street and
77
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78 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Fleet Street that “ Rule, Britannia ! ” did in the Wilhelm-
strasse and the Linden. Recruiting was stimulated in
Great Britain at one time by playing up the alleged remark
of the Kaiser, who referred to " the contemptible little
English arm)'.”
» T he enemy is not only insolent . He is so rdid. The
Germans were perfectly sure that British envy was the root
of the War, and, as for the United States, the economic
motive was all too plain, '^s Charles A. Collman yrote in
Die Kriegstreiber in Wall Street (Leipzig, 1917), the American
manufacturers and bankers stayed out of the War, until their
best customer, Great Britain, was threatened with insol-
vency. whereupon they proceeded to stampede the American
public into the War, barely in time to save their accounts.
\ The House of Morgan, with its overdraft to the British
government of $400,000,000, was faced with certain ruin,
having overstrained its credit to supply the British with
munitions. Only the diversion of the first Liberty loan
proceeds to Morgan saved him. The British Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Bonar Law, made a clean breast of
the British position in a speech which he delivered
July 24th, 1917:
Indeed, it is an open secret that wc had spent so freely
of our resources that those available in America had become
nearly exhausted when our great ally entered the struggle.
In December, 1916, the bare announcement that Germany
was making overtures of peace sent stocks hurtling down.
Bank credits were sharply curtailed and the Allied govern-
ments were able to renew their bills with the most extreme
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79
difficulty. The news of the diplomatic break with Germany
on the 4th of February, 1917, sent Bethlehem Steel up
30 points. American industries, already geared for pro-
duction to supply the Allies, had faced liquidation, readjust-
ment and even ruin at the whispers of peace ; they were
able to breathe easily once more. Mr. Henry P. Davidson,
%
a partner in J. P. Morgan and Company, had been one of
the most active opponents of Germany’s " insincere ” peace
offers ; he had wished for American participation in the War
in order to “ cleanse us from our selfishness.” 1
The enemy is inherently perfidious. M. Felix Sartiaux
wrote in the Morale Kantientic cl morale humainc (1916)
that
One of the most subtle tendencies of the German char-
acter is the hypocritical lie, which appears under the guise
of naive sincerity, and justifies itself by the most incredible
sophisms. . . . The judgment of a Latin historian, Villeius
Peterculus has often been quoted. He found the ancient
Germans a race of ' bom liars.”*
The enemy conducts a lying propaganda This theme /
is of particular importance. Unfavourable reports about
allies, the heads of the army, the conditions at the front,
and the bureaucracy are certain to leak past the censorship,
or to spring full-blown inside the ramparts. Psychological
barriers as well as physical barriers must be interposed
between dangerous news and subversive responses. This
psychological barrier consists in the suspicion that unfavour-
1 These interpretations, which were current in Germany during the
World War, can be read in English in J. K. Turner, Shall It Be Again ? and
L. E. Rowley, Wav Criminals (Privately Published, Lansing, Michigan,
,9 ‘.% e 408 .
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
80 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
able news is likely to be a cunning specimen of enemy pro-
paganda. If this supposition can be planted firmly in the
public mind, a mighty weapon has been forged against
disunity and defeatism.
The Germans were aghast at the efficiency of Allied
propaganda and they undertook to steel their people against
it by protesting loudly against the official French and
British Press and Press services. Rudolf Rotheit declared
that one of the conditions of peace must be the emancipation
of the World Press from the clutches of enemy telegraphic
agencies. He wrote Die Friedcnsbedingungen der deutschen
Presse — Los von Reuter und Havas (Berlin, 1915). Even the
schools had such copying exercises as “ Reuter's Agency,
the fabricator of War lies.” The British Press was the theme
of Paul Dehn’s study, entitled England und die Presse
(Hamburg, 1915). The Germans took Northcliffe as the
symbol of the British Press and poured vials of abuse on
his head.
The cry of German propaganda in France was loud and
insistent. Certain newspapers, even in the capital, were
suspected of contaminating the French mind to suit German
purposes. A more or less typical exposure of German
methods is contained in Le Matin for October 24th, 1917.
M. Louis Forest accuses the Germans of spending money to
influence the Press abroad. He calls attention to the book
of an Alsatian, which had exposed the German system before
the War. Even during the Franco-Prussian War, the Ger-
mans had their friends in Parisian newspaper offices. After
reviewing the evidence of past and present activity, he draws
this conclusion :
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everyone can determine for himself whether the present
German system is new or old. If to us it appears new, it
is because we are ignorant of such things. 1
The, enemy is quarrelsome, crude and destructive . MM.[ v-
Tudesq and J: Dyssord published Les Alternants feints par
cux-mtmcs in November, 1917. Heine was the authority
for the remark that
Christianity has softened to a certain degree this brutal
belligerent ardour of the German, but has been unable to
destroy it entirely.
Especially, exclaim the French editors, their proclivity
to destroy cathedrals, which has been amply confirmed by
the bombardment of Rheims, the burning of Belgian churches
and of cathedrals in Lorraine. Goethe had acknowledged
that
We, the Germans, are of yesterday. For a century it
is true that we have made substantial progress in civiliza-
tion, but centuries will yet pass before our peasants will
have the ideas or the spirit of a civilization sufficiently
advanced to enable them to render homage to beauty as
did the Greeks.
Schopenhauer blushes to belong to their race.
The enemy is atrociously cruel and degenerate in his | :
conduct nf the War. s A handy rule for arousing hate is, if •
at first they do not enrage, use an atrocity. It has been
employed with unvarying success in every conflict known to
man. Originality, while often advantageous, is far from
1 This may be read now with a certain amusement, for the Russian
documents have revealed the extent to which the Russian government
bought a large percentage of the French Press support which it enjoyed
in pre-war days. See the Livre Noir in particular, and the subsequent
articles in L Humaniie.
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indispensable. In the early days of the War of 1914 a very
pathetic story was told of a seven-year old youngster, who
had pointed his wooden gun at a patrol of invading Uhlans,
who had dispatched him on the spot. This story had done
excellent duty in the Franco-Prussian War, over forty years
before. But many of the most successful tales have a far
more venerable history. There is one about the Turks,
which had rattled down Christendom since the first crusades.
According to this account, a tub full of eyes was discovered
at a certain point, where captives were being tortured for
the amusement of Turkish generals.
Stress can always be laid upon the wounding of women,
children, old people, priests and nuns, and upon sexual
enormities, mutilated prisoners and mutilated non-com-
batants. These stories yield a crop of indignation against
the fiendish perpetrators of these dark deeds, and satisfy
certain powerful, hidden impulses. A young woman,
ravished by the enemy, yields secret satisfaction to a host
of vicarious ravishers on the other side of the border. Hence,
perhaps, the popularity and ubiquity of such stories.
While all atrocity stories show a family resemblance, and
the old stand-bys can be relied upon, no classification should
be regarded by the practical propagandist as more than
suggestive. A certain fringe of novelty is always permissible,
because the conditions of warfare arc never precisely the
same. Since the discovery of germs the enemy may be
accused of infecting wells, cattle, and food, not to speak of
wounds. A booklet on Microbe-Culture at Bucharest was
put out in London in 1917, and covered the subject very
nicely. If the enemy shows signs of believing that a cam-
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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paign of frightfulness is sound military strategy, there need
be no hesitation about calling God and man to witness that
such an abomination is the new-born creation of the dia-
bolical enemy. It was the absence of any opportunity for
effective contradiction in wartime which made it possible
for Professor Lavisse, for instance, to proclaim in the
Pratique et doctrine de la guerre allemande that
Not one of our military writers taught the doctrine
of the guerre atroce.
After peace came it was possible for another Frenchman,
Ddmartial, to procure a hearing in the interest of veracity
and to recall attention to a three-volume tome (Vaincre) by
the French officer Montaigne, in which this thesis was
defended :
Terrify ; and in order to terrify, destroy. One sets out
to kill, one shoots to kill, one leaps at the throat of the
enemy but to kill, and one kills until there is nothing left
to kill. 1
Americans did not think it worth while to recall the
theory of war entertained by General Sheridan. He visited
Bismarck at the field headquarters of the Prussian Army
in France, in 1870, and declared.
The proper strategy consists in the first place in inflicting
as telling blows as possible upon the enemy’s army, and
then causing the inhabitants so much suffering that they
must long for peace, and force their government to demand
it. The people must be left nothing but their eyes to weep
with over the war.*
1 Cited on page 19 of G. Ddmartial, Comment on mobilisa les consciences.
“ Umano,” an Italian jurist, publishes an anonymous collection of state-
ments by public men during the War which he regards as unfounded in
connection with his diffuse yet interesting study called Positives scienia di
governo. 1922.
* Busch, Bismarck, I : 1*8.
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84 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
It was likewise perfectly safe for President Poincare to
flay the barbarous Germans for dropping bombs upon
defenceless women and children. Very few among the
Allied peoples knew, and very few of them, had they known,
would have cared, that on the 26th of June, 1916, French
and English aviators dropped bombs upon Karlsruhe, killing
or wounding 26 women and 124 children, or that on the
22nd of September, 1915, the Allied bombers had taken a
toll of 103 victims in a raid upon the same city. In the
fever of combat the news of the slaughter of enemy non-
combatants is apt to be met by the exulting cry that the
11 whelps and dams of murderous foes " are no more, to quote
a chivalrous line of Swinburne, when he heard about the
frightful mortality in the concentration camps for Boer
women and children in South Africa.
It was equally safe for the Allies to declare that it could
only have occurred to a German Hun to organize a campaign
of systematic destruction of machinery, warehouses, bridges
and railroads in a region from which they were retreating.
There was no one to call attention to the recommendations
of the Engineer, a reputable British technical periodical, in
its issue for September 25th, 1914, to the effect that the
army ought to break up the equipment and to raze the
factory of every German industry which the fortunes of
war might bring into their hands. German competition
after the War would thus be seriously crippled. 1 Nor was
the destruction by the Allies of the oil properties during their
retreat through Rumania conspicuously interpreted to the
people as other than a smart stroke to cheat the enemy.
1 Cited by Dfimartiai as cited, p. 24.
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A catalogue of the crimes which the enemy has been
held to have perpetrated in the past ought to stimulate the
ingenuity more than the imitativeness of the propaganda
expert. The suggestions referred to here are by no means
exhaustive. During the late War innumerable schemes for
classifying enemy outrages were invented. As a random
sample one may select the first large and important atrocity
brochure put out by the French Government. 1
German sins were sorted into bins which were labelled
thus :
r. Violation of the neutrality of Luxemburg and Belgium.
2. Violation of French Frontier before the Declaration
of War.
3. Killing of prisoners and wounded.
4. Looting, arson, rape, murder.
5. Use of forbidden bullets.
6. Use of burning liquids and asphyxiating gas.
7. Bombarding of fortresses without notice and of
unfortified towns ; the destruction of buildings consecrated
to Religion, Art, Science and Charity.
8. Treacherous Methods of Warfare.
9. Cruelties inflicted on civil population.
Dr. Emst Miiller-Meiningen, a member of the German
Reichstag, compiled the sins of the Entente in Dcr WeUkrieg
und der Zusammenbruch des V olkerrechts , which had passed
through a third revised edition by the middle of 1915. The
general scheme of organization is indicated in the Table of
Contents :
r. The Neutrality of Belgium (How Belgium connived
secretly with the Allies).
1 R^publiquo Francaise, Documents rilatifs A la guerre 1914-15.
Rapports et Procis-verbaux d'enjuSte de la commission institute en vue
de constater les actes commis par I'ennemi tn violation du droit des gens.
Paris, 1915.
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86 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
2. Mobilization and the Morality of Nations.
\ 3. Violation of the Congo Acts. The Colonial War.
V4. The Employment of barbarous and warlike tribes in
a European War.
5. The Violation of the Neutrality of the Suez Canal.
6. The Breach of Chinese Neutrality by Japan and
England's Assault upon Kiao-Chau.
7. The use of Dum-Dum Bullets and the like.
8. Treatment of Diplomatic Representatives by the
Triple Entente Countries in Violation of International Law.
Acts of Diplomatic Representatives of the Triple Entente
in Violation of International Law.
9. Non-observances and Violations of Red Cross Rules
on the Part of the Triple Entente States.
10. Franc-Tireur Warfare and the Maltreatment of the
Defenceless before and after the Declaration of War. Also
the Imprisonment of Civilians.
11. Unlawful and Inhumane Methods of Conducting
War Practised by the Hostile Armies and the Governments
of the Triple Entente and Belgium.
12. The Russian Atrocities in East Prussia in especial.
13- Jewish Pogroms and Other Russian Atrocities in
Poland, Galicia, the Caucasus, etc.
14. The “ Spirit ” of the Troops of the Triple Entente.
Plundering, and Destruction of their own country’s Property.
Self-Mutilations. Verdicts upon the Troops of the Triple
Entente by their own Officers.
15. The Destruction and Misuse of Telegraph Cables.
16. Further Details as to the Vendetta of Lies of the
Press of the Triple Entente. A Method of Waging War con-
trary to all International Law. The French “ Art of War.’’
^ 17. The Bombardment of Town 5 and Villages from
Aeroplanes. The use of shells that develop Gas.
18. English Business Moral and the Code of English
Creditors. Deprivation of the Legal Rights of Germans in
Russia and France.
19. Breaches of Neutrality on the Seas by England and
the Other States of the Triple Entente. Contraband of
War. Blockades, etc.
(Condensed.)
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The quantitative methods of modem social science were
applied to the atrocity problem as the War went on. In a
report prepared for the Serbs about Austro-Hungarian
atrocities the first plate, which summarizes the investigation
is entitled, *' Statistics of Atrocities.” It is limited to the
districts of Potzerie, Matchva, Yadar and certain others.
Women and children are recorded in parallel columns, and
the number of cases relating to each item is recorded. The
items are :
Executed or otherwise shot, Bayoneted or knifed, Throats
cut, Killed, Burnt alive, Killed in massacre, Beaten to
death with rifles or sticks. Stoned to death, Hanged, Dis-
embowelled, Bound and tortured on the spot, Missing,
Carried off as prisoners, Wounded, Arms cut off or broken.
Legs cut off or broken, Noses cut off, Ears cut off, Eyes
gouged out, Sexual parts mutilated, Skin tom in strips.
Flesh or scalp removed, Corpses cut into small pieces,
Breasts cut off, Women violated.
Certain special items, such as the use of explosive bullets,
which were not susceptible of statistical treatment, were
dealt with in qualitative terms . 1 To the impact of the
quantitative method is added the dramatization of the
individual case. The book is copiously embellished with
horror-photographs of mutilated corpses and devastated
villages.
There is a certain technical advantage in varying the
form of the atrocity account. Sometimes a victim may
be permitted to tell his own story, as in the case of a dis-
tinguished Belgian scholar who was condemned by the Ger-
1 Kingdom of Serbia, Report upon the atrocities committed by the Austro-
Hungarian Army during the jirsi invasion of Serbia, by R. A. Reiss, London,
1916.
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mans to forced labour and told his experiences in Through the
Iron Bars (London, 1917). William Caine published an
alleged interview with a victim of the German invasion,
called Monsieur Sagotin’s Story (London, 1917). The mis-
adventure of a single person was related by W. T. Hill in
The Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell. 1 The neutral witness
always speaks with some authority, and Dr. De Christmas
testified to the sad lot of the French prisoners in Germany
as he visited them. His was called Le Traitement des
Prisonniers Francais tn illemagne (Paris, 1917). Admis-
sions by an enemy are always useful, and the French
published the captured diary of a non-commissioned German
officer, in which the cruelties perpetrated by officers on
soldiers and civilians were written down. The diary was
edited by Louis-Paul Alaux, and published in 1918, under
the title Souvenirs de guerre d'un sous-officer allemand. The
record of a German Deserter’s War Experience was published
in New York, 1917.
An excellent device which was used by the British to
lend weight to their stories of German atrocities was to
constitute a commission of men with international
reputations for truthfulness to collect evidence and deliver
findings. The British, with an eye not alone upon their
own populace, but upon the American people, delivered a
stroke of genius by appointing the so-called Biycg. Corri b
mission^ The Evidence and Documents laid before the Corn-
tee on Alleged German Outrages (London, 1915) was the
magnum opus of the War on this front. The brochure on
German War Practices, which was published by the Com-
1 The German public believed that Miss Cavell was a spy, incidentally.
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Information in the United States in 1916,
wa th^/ last of the innumerable versions of this
^ T^jforf 6 e» 45 ^ \o y>ju^AAi^
Yet another form in which propaganda complaints may
be made against the enemy is in the controversial statement \
or pamphlet. Dr. Max Kuttner remonstrated with a former
pupil of his who had lent his pen to the French “ calumnies ”
in a little booklet called Deutsche Verbrechen ? ... (in
reply to) Joseph Bedier, Les crimes allcmands d’apris
temoignages allemands (Bielefeld und Leipzig, 1915). Had
not this Frenchman once been taught the importance of
weighing evidence ? Hubert Grimme took a similar line in
his remarks on Ein boswilliger Sprachstumper (Munster, 1915).
Nobody ever supposed that these pamphlets would produce
repentance in France, but they serve to keep alive the spirit 1
of virtuous indignation in Germany. To ask whether the
Germans were criminals was like announcing a sermon on
the subject, “ Are Churchmen Hj'pocrites ? " The answer *,
is a flattening and resounding negative which readily passes >
over into an indignant criticism of the perfidy of those who
dare insinuate such a thing.
Before taking leave of the unsavoury subject of atrocities
another principle must be brought out. It is always '
difficult for many simple minds inside a nation to attach
personal traits to so dispersed an entity as a whole
nation. i They need to have some individu al on whom to
p in their h ate.| It is, therefore, important to single out a
handful of enemy leaders and load them down with the whole
decalogue of sins.
No personality drew' more abuse of this sort in the last
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War than the Kaiser. The London Evening News christened
the Kaiser the " Mad Dog of Europe ” on the 6th of August,
and the “ War Lord " a little while thereafter. Austen
Harrison wrote about The Kaiser’s War (London, 19 14).
The Liberie of Paris took pains in the issue of November 24th,
1916, to identify William II. with the Beast of the Apocalypse,
as foreseen by St. John. It appeared that upon the basis
of researches, conducted by an English savant, the number of
the Beast w r as 666, and the Kaiser’s number was just this.
The word Kaiser has six letters. Place them one beneath
the other in a column. At the left of each number, record
the place in the alphabet, which is occupied by each of these
letters. Thus " K,” the eleventh letter in the alphabet,
is placed beside six, to make 116. The completed columns
sum up to 666, the mystic number. 1
It would be possible to multiply the individual adjectives
which can serve as the themes for injurious propaganda
against a nation, but it is now more to the point to suggest
some of the methods by which the whole of the indictment
can be presented synthetically. There are some, who do not
hesitate to indict a whole civilization at a single gesture,
and these mentalities may be relied upon to furnish sys-
tematic treatises upon such subjects as Civilises contre
Allemands. This particular book was published in Paris
in 1915, by the Frenchman, Jean Finot, who had published
an excellently objective treatise on race prejudice before the
War. In the same strain wrote the eminent historian,
Ernest Lavisse, in his Kultur ct Civilisation (1915), and
1 Repeated in Graux. f.es Jausses nouvelles de la grande guerre. I : 282.
Former Ambassador J. W. Gerard criticized the Kaiser in My Four Years
1 n Germany, New York, 1917, and Face to Face tilth Kaiserism, New York,
3918. The dentist Arthur N. Davis wrote about Tie Kaiser as I Knew Him,
New York arid London, 1918.
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Andr6 Saures in Nous et Eux (1915). Mr. Rudyard Kipling
said in the columns of The Morning Post (London) of June
22nd, 1915 :
But, however the world pretends to divide itself, there
arc only two divisions in the world to-day — human beings
and Germans.
In what purported to be a scientific treatise on the
Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War (London, 1917),
Trotter solemnly said.
The incomprehensibility to the English of the whole
trend of German feeling and expression suggests that there
is some deeply-rooted instinctive conflict of attitude between
them. One may risk the speculation that this conflict is
between socialized gregariousness and aggressive gregari-
ousness. 1
Mr. John Cooper Powys replied to Professor Miinsterberg
under the title, The Menace of German Culture (London,
1915). The Germans were heaping tip a vast literature of
self-exaltation about the theme, Kultur. An inspection of
this list of selected titles from German output will reveal
something of its scope and purport :
Herm. Cohen, Ueber das Eigentumliche des deutschen Geistes
(Berlin, 1915).
E. Bergmann, Die weltgeschichtliche Mission der deutschen
Bildung (Gotha, 1915).
Rudolf Eucken, Die weltgeschichtliche Bedcutung des
deutschen Geistes (Stuttgart, 1914).
R. v. Delius, Deulschlanis geistige Well machtstellu ng
(Stuttgart, r9i5).
J. A. Lux, Deutschland ah Welterzieher (Stuttgart, 1914).
Hcrausgcg. v. Karl Honn, Der Kampf des deutschen Geistes
im Weltkrieg. Dokumentc des deutschen Geisteslcbens
aus der Kriegszeit (Gotha, 1915).
1 Page 174.
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fi nnan assurance an cl self-esteem was buttressed bv-t he
of a cloud of foreign witn esscsj Bjorn Bjomson,
:andinavian writer, paid a tribute called Vom deutschen
Westn. Impressionen tints Stammesverwandten, 1914-17
(Berlin, 19 17). [Houston Stewart Chamberlain, expatriated
Englishman, rallied to the defence of the Deutsches Westn
(Miinchen, 1916). In his earlier writings he had exclaimed,
“If there is in the world a peaceful, well-behaved, pious
people, it is the Germans. In the last forty-three years, not
a single man in the whole country has desired war — no, not
one/j England had been led into the War by the
unscrupulous machinations of a King who was a tool of a
cunning diplomat. England was no longer the land of
liberty, but the slave of a vicious oligarchy. 1 Ferdinand
Tdnnies, a celebrated German sociologist, brought together
all the imperialistic utterances of British statesmen in his
book about England. 1 ^The business of editing anthologies
of incriminating remarks thrived all during the WasJ Jean
Ruplinger published a collection of German War utterances,
under the title, Also sprach Germania. The book appeared in
Paris in 1918, with a preface by Edouard Herriot. William
Archer compiled the Gems of German Thought, which was
published in 1917.
A great mass of specialized studies upon different features
>f the life and character of another country is welcome in
-war. The aged philosopher and psychologist Wilhelm
Wundt compared the philosophical ideals of every nation.
1 His earlier essays were published in England in 1915 under the title of
The Ravings 0 f a Renegade.
* .\n English edition wa3 brought out in New York in 1915 under the
title, Warlike England As Seen by Herself.
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greatly to the advantage of Germany, in a brochure entitled,
Die Nationen und ihre Philosophie (Leipzig, 1914). In
particular, Baron Cay von Brockdorff took care to expose
the truth about Bergson, as he saw it, in Die Wahrhcit tiler
Bergson (Berlin, 1917). In the United States, John Dewey
unintentionally did great service to those who were drum-
ming up sentiment against Germany by ringing the changes
on certain aspects of German philosophy in his book on
German Philosophy and Politics (New York, 1915), which had
a new vogue when America went to War. If the history of
Prussia was interpreted as a record of ruffian robberies by
Allied scholars, the story of British imperialism was a stench
in the nostrils of the Germans. Some incriminating morsels
were assembled in books about Persia and India, such as
the Englische Dokumentc zur Erdrosselung Persiens (Berlin,
1917), and Indien unter der britischen Faust (Berlin, 1916).
The real meaning of political freedom was clarified by A. O.
Meyer, who discovered that real freedom was in Germany
and not in England, and wrote Deutsche Freiheit und
englischer Parlamentarismus (Munchen, 1915). The Belgian
Fr. De Hovde intended to compliment the British educational
system, when he compared it to the disadvantage of the
German sj'stem, by writing that its aim might be summarized
in the slogan
Be good, my pretty maid, and let who will be clever.
His book wa ^German and English Education (London, 1917).
While Germany was yet at peace with America. Dr. Karl.
Henning published a scurrilous pamphlet on America, called
Die Wahrheit iiber America (Leipzig, 1915) which was
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subsequently useful when War came. ^Senning devoted most
of his attention to the family and the educational system
in the United States. He combed the reports of some of
the municipal vice commissions for juicy stories about sex
offences committed by children and reproduced these as
typical of the standards of American life. One prize exhibit
was a letter, which he said was in his possession, and was
written by an eight-year old girl to a boy of the same age. It
was :
Dear Arthur, — I will come over to-night, shall I ? Do
you love me ? I love you very dearly and to-night we will
go to a show and stay till midnight and we will dance at a
theatre for a long time and then we will come home and you
can sleep with me till morning and next Sunday we will go
horse-riding. Your sweetheart, M. (Page 54.) 1
Now r monographs of every variety reach a certain
restricted audience, and if the wider circles of the public
arc to be touched by synthetic representations of the life
of another country, the form must be personal and dramatic
and literary. Of this sort of thing a book put out in England
during the War may well serve as a model. It was plausible,
well-written, and utterly devastating. 1 have been told
by more than one member of the German propaganda
service, that they considered it the best piece of propaganda
work gotten out by the Allies in the course of the War. This
was Christine, by Alice Cholmondeley (New York, 1917).
It purported to be an authentic collection of letters written,
by a music student in Germany to her mother in England
The girl was a talented violinist and in May. 1914. went over
to study with a great German master. She was bubbling
with enthusiastic anticipation of art and life in Germany.
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She wrote her Berlin letters from an address in Liitzowstrasse,
where a Pension was known to be.
All is buoyance and happiness until, by degrees, German
civilization begins to make itself known to her. The police
arc boorish and haughty. Her music master is secretly
scornful of the whole German regime. The talk at the
Pension is about clean Berlin, and slummy London. She is
held more or less personally responsible for the Boer War.
She is pestered by all sorts of irritating rules and regulations,
for she is not allowed to practise on the Sabbath. Rules
arc typical of Germany, and she finds a girl acquaintance
celebrating the birthday of her father, whom she despised,
five years after his death. Her lamp is taken away at io p.m.
and she is left with a candle. Snobbishness abounds. A
Countess patronizes the arts, but will not permit her
daughter to become contaminated. A young German of
high birth longs to become a musician, but the caste con-
ventions make an officer of him. The children kill them-
selves in Germany because of overwork in the schools. She
is elbowed by men and boys when she walks abroad alone.
The pros and cons of Weltpolitik follow her everywhere.
An ominous sense of impending war pervades everything.
•
The lower classes grovel in servile respect before the upper
classes. The drill, perhaps, does it. Unmarried girls are
not supposed to ask questions in conversations, but te-keep
discreetly silent and unobtrusive. A rural pastor lectures
her on the English love of money bags. She meets a staff
officer, who ominously advises her to ask the Council of
her Sussex village to straighten the road for heavy traffic.
An expectant mother prays for a boy baby, so that she can
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be the mother of a soldier. She finds the German aristocrats
#
so middle class. She becomes engaged to the charming
young officer with musical frustrations. As the inter-
national crisis approaches, she sees wild orgies of joy at the
imminence of War. Her violin master has his mouth stuffed
by receiving a Roj'al decoration. Her marriage is blocked
by the superior officer of her betrothed. She flees to escape
internment and is stopped on the border. A young sub-
ordinate forces her to wait in the sun for two hours, and she
gets double pneumonia, dying at Stuttgart on the 8th of
August, 1914. All the facts about German life are floated
in a wave of gush about music and mother. The whole
thing is marvellously executed, and the book had a tremen-
dous circulation among women and school children in Allied
and neutral countries. It is typical of the circumstantial-
sentimental type of thing which can be placed in the fiction
columns of a woman s magazine or in the book stalls. By
such a thing does the opposing nation become His Satanic
Majesty, the Enemy.
The cult of satanism thus arises and feeds on hate. Ven-
geance is Mine, saith the Lord, and the Lord is working
through us to destroy the Devil. The stirring stanzas of
Lissauer’s famous " Hymn of Hate ” expose all this in its
pristine nudity. ...
Hate by water and hate by land ; •
Hate of the heart and hate of the hand ;
We love as one, we hate as one ;
We have but one foe alone, — England.
All the specific means of conquering the Evil One are,
and should be, glorified. The cult of battle requires that
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every form of common exertion (enlistment, food-saving,
munition making, killing the enemy) should have the
blessing of all the holy sentiments. In Christian countries
precautions must be taken to calm the doubts of those who
undertake to give such a book as the Bible an inconvenient
interpretation. It is always expedient to circulate the
arguments of the preachers and priests who are willing to
explain how you can follow Jesus and kill your enemies.
There arc always enough theological leaders to undertake
the task, since it is only the small sects, usually regarded as
fanatical, who see any serious difficulty in the problem. In
the German war literature arc to be found many books
which were written to remove doubts from those hesitant
souls, who hated to shoot worse than they hated the
English. Theodore Birt reassured the Christians who
were perplexed by the exhortation to " Love your ene-
mies ” in Was heisst “ Licbet cure Fcinde " ? Bin Wort
zur Beruhigung (Marburg, 1915). W. Walther wrote a
popular treatise for the benefit of the Lutherans. It is
called Deutschlands Schwcrt dutch Luther geweiht (2 Aufl.,
Leipzig, 1915). Otto Albrecht found a forecast of victory
in Luther, Eine Kriegspredigt aus Luthers Schriften
(1914)-
I Lis also useful to justify war in general on ethical rath er
tha n exclusively religious gro unds. The eminent Rudolf
Eucken praised the moral power of war in Die sittliehen
Krafte des Krieges (Leipzig, 1914), and Theodor Elsenhaus
lauded it as a great teacher in Der Krieg als Erzieher (Dresden,
1914). Theodor Kipp saw no antithesis between the idea
of might and right, the important thing being to make the
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right mighty, as he contended in Von der Mackt des Rechts
(Berlin, 1914).
1 Th e, justification of war can proceed more smooth ly if
I the hid eous aspects of the war business are screened fr om
• p ublic ga ze. People may be permitted to deplore war in
the abstract, but they must not be encouraged to paint its
1 horrors too vividly. In fact, there is place for such items
as this one, which appeared in the American Press during
the early days of the Spanish-Amcrican War :
DEATH RATE HAS GROWN LESS. Fearful Record
of Trafalgar’s Days has never been equalled. Machine
Gun's Moral Effect. Modern guns less destructive than
flint locks, dart, or javelin. 1
/ B etter yet, of course, is the interpretation of the wa r in
j- t erms of heroism, good fellowship, s martness and pict uresque-
j ness. In the late War, an artist like Muirhead Bone could
be relied upon to present The Western Front in softened
sketches. The humorous magazines and books help to
banter away the realities of battle and they profit from the
impulse to turn one’s head away from a spectacle which,
if completely realized, might well prove unbearable. A
Bruce Baimsfathcr is worth at least an Army Corps.*
Popular accounts of how the military machinery works
give the public a sense of knowing just how things get on ;
of course, the writers should be careful to* keep too much
blood from getting mixed in the story. Such writers as
Bernard Shaw, H. G. W r ells, and Arthur Conan Doyle, were
sent to visit the British officials and they came back witli
1 Louisville Courier-Journal, Juno 26, 1898.
* See, for instance, Bullets and Billets , N.Y., 19x7.
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discreet accounts of how they felt about it. Ludwig Gang-
hofer described all the German fronts in a series of books.
It is the letters and books written by actual fighters to
which the most importance is attached. Harold R. Peat
(Private Peat) and Sergeant Guy Empey (Over the Top)
explained the actual conduct of modem war to Americans.
Donald Hankey (A Student in Arms) was a soldier who saw
the War through the lenses of a moral and religious idealist,
and his book struck many responsive chords in America
and England. This same quality pervaded the work of
certain other writers, such as Carry On? by Coningsby
Dawson. A whimsical, determined note in Ian Hay’s
First Hundred Thousand sent it through the English-speaking
world, as soon as it fell from the Press.
Tales of individual adventure kept the old spell of romance
about war. One soldier told Was ich in mehr als 80
Schlachten und Gefechten erlebte (Berlin, 1916). Pat O'Brien
told how he escaped from the Germans in Outwitting the Hun
(New York, 1916). Dr. Th. Preyer tells how he managed
to return home from New York in Von Hew York nach
Jerusalem und in die Wiiste (Berlin, 1916). Paul Konig
related the exploits of the submarine which crossed the
Atlantic in Die Fahrl der Deutschland (Berlin, 1917). Marcel
Hadaud caught the atmosphere of air battle in En plein vol
(Paris, 1916). The Zeppeline uber England met with a
warm reception in Germany in 19 r 6, as did Kapildn-
leutnant Freiherr von Forstner als U- Bootes Kommandant
gegen England. Von Miicke's story of the Emden was
one of the most popular books of the War. Kurt Agram
told the sensational story of the 100.000 Germans, who were
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banished to Siberia by the Russian Government, and of
how he managed to escape, in Nach Sibirien mit 100,000
Deutschen. How he managed to reach the Fatherland from
the besieged colonies was the theme of Emil Zimmermann.
Meine Kriegsfahrt von Katnerun zur Heimat.
Special collections of letters from the front were prepared
in all countries. Der deutsche Krieg in Feldposlbriefen,
Soldier’s Tales oj the Great War, and similar collections ran
into several volumes. Special volumes were continually
appearing, such as Charles Foley, La vie de la guerre (Paris,
1917) , in which the War letters first published in L’ Echo
de Paris are brought within one cover. Sketches of the
front were always welcome when done with any literary
skill, and Henry de Forge, Ah! la belle France 1 (Paris, 1916),
Maurice Grandolphe, La marche & la victoire (Paris, 1915),
or Max Buteau, Tenir. Recits de la vie de Tranches (Paris,
1918) were ample to satisfy the demand. 1
P rofessional people of various kinds are able to reach
t heir own public, and should be encouraged to write. Aug.
A. Lemaitre, pastor at Lidvin, and of Swiss origin, gave his
story of Un an prls des champs de bataille de T Artois (Edits
par la societd centrale cvangdlique, Paris). J. Emile
Blanche’s Cahiers d’un artiste (Paris, 1917) touched the
artistic fraternity. Teachers, doctors and nurses, not to
speak of engineers and chemists, belong to the ranks of
those, who can usually describe what they see, with some
reserves about the unpleasant.
During the first few weeks of the War those elements in
1 Boyd Cable performed the difficult task of squeezing stories out of
official communiques. In his Between the Lines and other books, a dull,
dry extract from an official despatch was polished up into a story.
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the business community who required some coddling before
they would face realities, were fed on such catchwords as
“ Business ns I Trim 1 This phrase sprang up quickly in
England, where it had a short vogue before succumbing to
facts and ridicule. Mr. Tom Bruce Jones brought out a
pamphlet on The Danger of Brtlaw’s Invasion, and how it
may be met whilst carrying on “ business as usual ” (Falkirk,
1914). On the nth of August, the phrase appeared in the
London Daily Chronicle in the letter from H. E. Morgan of
W. H. Smith and Sons. Thus are all barriers down to the
glorification of all the means necessary to the overcoming of
evil by force.
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THE ILLUSION OF VICTORY
I The fighting spirit of a nation feeds upon the convic tion
l that it .has .t fighting chanc e to win. The enemy may be
dangerous, obstructive, and satanic, but if he is sure to win,
the moral of many elements in the nation will begin to
waver and crumble. The animosity of a discouraged nation
may be diverted to a new object, and the nation may be so
busy hating the ruling class of its own country or its own
allies, that it simply ceases to hate the technical enemy,
and military collapse ensues.
The illusion of victory must be nourished because of the
close connection between the strong and the good. Primitive
. habits of thought persist in modern life, and battles become
a trial to ascertain the true and the good. If we win, God
is on our side. If we lose, God may have been on the other
side. To bow to necessity is to bow to the right, unless the
universe is itself evil, or unless this can be interpreted
as a temporary tribulation meted out to punish us for
past sins or to cleanse us for future glory. In any case,
defeat wants a deal of explaining, while victory speaks for
itself.
The state of public expectation about the issue of the War
depends upon the answer to the query, what is the relative
strength of our side, and the enemy’s side ? From the
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103
propagandist point of view there are several striking
examples of the way this question ought not to be answered.
T o insist upon the feebleness of the enemy, and to foster ■
public exp ectation of his imminent collapse is to encourage j
h opes which may be indefinite ly deferred, with the resulting
danger of disenchantment, depression and defeat. During
the first month of the late War , Paris was left without exact
news of the position of the struggling armies, and the most
feverish rumours filled the void. Paris expected immediate
victory. Had not von der Goltz admitted that the ener-
vating life of the cities had already fostered the decadence
of Germany? Had not General Keim declared that Ger-
many could never have won in 1870 but for the circumstance
that she outnumbered the French by one-third, a disparity
which the presence of the English and the Belgians had now
overcome ? Were not Italy, Holland and Portugal on the
verge of casting in their lot with the Entente ? Were not
enemy prisoners begging bread for themselves and oats for
their horses ? Were not strikes and riots breaking out in
Berlin ? Were not the soldiers driven to battle by their
Prussian officers at the point of the pistol ? Were not they
deserting in droves, and had not a single French soldier on
patrol frightened fifty Germans into surrender ? Were not
our horses drinking at the brooks in Lorraine ?
After the report that Miilhausen had been captured on the
9th of August no more specific information was published
until much later about the theatre of the War. Of what
then did the newspapers write? Dr. Graux, a physician,
kept a diary of War rumours, which has been published in
five volumes. lie answers the question thus :
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104 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Of German atrocities ? That, alas, was true. But also of
the correspondence of soldiers, a religious ceremony at the
Kremlin, the findings of a military commission of inquiry
at Belfort, our manner of treating prisoners, the Crown
Prince’s wound — a false report — war correspondents, the
prohibition of Russian exports, Swiss neutrality, German
bluff, a patriotic address by M. Clementel, the ambulance
of Madame Messimy, of Swiss volunteers, les promenades
de Paris, the conquest of Togo, Red Cross supplies, Ameri-
cans maltreated in Germany !'
But where were the Germans ?
It was not until the 20th that the Matin began to break
the news. Its headline read :
ARE THEY AT BRUSSELS ?
As the truth began, in part, to filter through, wild rumours
clouded the sky. Alarmists saw Germans in the Bois de
Boulogne. On the 27th there appeared no official com-
munique, and on the 28th the newspapers tried to plug the
gap by prophesying that
THE TSAR SOON DICTATES CONDITIONS TO
GERMANY.
On the 29th the front seemed to be on the Somme, and
on the 30th the facts came out. Hopes were meanwhile
nourished on the report that " Turpinite,” a new and
deadly explosive, would annihilate the invader.
In Berlin the first twenty-five days of the War were
passed in a joyous delirium. The papers were congested
with news of captured soldiers, captured guns, captured
flags. More material of war was taken than in the whole
1 The record of the first few days is found in Graux, Lei Fausses Nouvelles
de la Grande Guerre, vol. 1.
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campaign of 1870 . The fall of Paris was but a matter of
days.
The exaggerated optimism of those days reverberated in
an undertone of accusation all during the War. Had not
the public been grossly misled by its leaders ? The proper
way to manage the public, of course, is to insist upon the
ultimate success of our cause. Both the French and the
German commands were saved from complete loss of con-
fidence by the thesis of “ surprise attack ” by the enemy,
and this is an excellent theme for the propagandist to foster.
If you win, you can afford to let the “ surprise attack ” slip
out of mind, but if you are embarrassed, it is a very present
help in time of trouble. The civilian population is
ready to accept this thesis, because it knows perfectly well
that it was plotting no war and. therefore, that the enemy
must have been.
Among the Allied powers the official thesis was that
Germ any, armed to the teeth and crouched to spring ha d
pared world, invaded J3elgium and swept through Northern
France before the pacific and astonished Allies could recover
from the shock sufficiently to stem the attack.
So far as the truth is concerned, the fact seems to be that
the talk about “ surprise attack ” and “ unpreparedness ”
was grossly exagg erate d for the purpose of covering up the
failure of French strategy and of preventing the total
eclipse of civilian moral. Such, at least, is the thesis of
Jean de Pierrefeu, who, as the maker of official communiques
at General Headquarters during the War, was in a favourable
position to ascertain the truth.
After having connived at
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106 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
deception for the years of the War, he had undertaken to
reveal the truth as he saw it in a book called Plutarch Liei
(Plutarque a-t-il merit i?). He says that the French General
Staff had known for years that the German attack would be
by way of Belgium, and that they had planned their strategy
with this in mind, but that they were beaten in open combat,
because their plan miscarried. The High Command kept
indispensable reinforcements from the Left, which was
crumpling before the Germans, on the supposition that a
French attack through Alsace would enable them to imperil
the communications of the German armies in the West. The
French were hurled back in Alsace, swept aside in the West,
their whole plan of campaign smashed into bits, and their
very existence saved only by a boncheaded play on the part
of the Germans. 1
T he thesis of sur prise at tack is rendered plausible to the
civilian population by rumours of enemy spies. Spy hunts
are due to great excitement in the presence of a huge, new
danger, which is magnified by the sense of personal frustra-
tion produced by the sense of inability to do anything
effective toward dispelling the menace. The peasants of
Germany were excited b}' the wild talcs of yellow automobiles
which were supposed to be dashing from France across
Germany, laden with gold for Russia. They stretched
iron chains across the roads and made it unhappy for many
a poor tourist. Military despatch riders in Great Britain
were frequently stopped and lodged in gaol during the
1 For the pre-war literature which forecasted and analysed the strategy
of the War, see John Bakeless, The Origin of the Next War, ch. X. For
another side of a controversial issue, see Philp Nearaes, German Strategy
and the Great I Var.
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feverish days of the War. The spy mania is a great incon-
venience to many people, but it helps to arouse the com-
munity to a deeper sense of the necessity for joint action
in the .c risis. Such books as that of William Le Queux,
Britain’s Deadly Peril (London, 1915) project the spy fear
further into the conflict.
The theory of sur prise atta ck must be a ssociated wi th
the thesis of our b rilliant resistanc e to ^ temporarily ov er-
whelming od ds, if undue pessimism is to be averted. Our
ultimate success is assured. Our reserves of men and
material and foreign friendship are greater than those of the
enemy. On these points, foreign testimony is particularly
reassuring. The French encouraged themselves by publish-
ing the Voix italiennes sur la guerre de 1914-15 and the Voix
de 1 A mtrique latine (Preface by Gomez Carillo) in 1916. The
English collected Sixty American Opinions on the War (1915),
and welcomed Roosevelt's Why America should join the
Allies (1915). Ramsey Muir wrote an introduction to the
English edition of The War and the Settlement, by Rignano,
the eminent Italian philosopher (1916). The Germans
favoured the War correspondents of foreign countries before
the Allies woke up to its importance, and they were usually
sure of a rich harvest of clippings for reproduction in the
home Press. Sven Hedin, a Swede, wrote With the German
Armies in the West, which was widely translated. The
Germans were assured of the active aid and sympathy of
the Germans in the United States, according to the book
by Karl Junger, called Deutsch-Amerika mobil . . . / (Ber-
lin, 1915). A Swiss neutral, Dr. J. Strebel, told the Germans
about some encouraging signs of future collapse, which he
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108 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
had observed in Allied countries. His Reisebilder was put
•
Out at Lucerne and Berlin in 1915. A Swiss neutral, Paul
Balmer, told the French about some encouraging signs of
future collapse which he had observed in Germany. His
Les Allemands chcz eux was put out at Paris in 1915. An
American pacifist had seen suffering in Germany at first
hand, and wrote Short Rations (by Madeleine Z. Doty)
which was published in New York in 1917.
Such cumulated fact and opinion may be supplemented
by pro phecy . The famous Almanack de Madame de Thtbes
nourished the moral of certain classes of the French public
in the critical days of 1914. The Figaro published a pro-
phecy on the 19th of August, 1914, which was supposed to
date from the year 1600. A certain Friar John foresaw that
an Anti-Christ by the name of William the Second would
succumb in the same territory where he forged his weapons.
Essen and Westphalia were undoubtedly meant.
Occasionally, a prophecy will inadvertently work both
ways. The Germans launched a prediction that victory
would rest with three emperors and three kings, which
clearly referred to Germany, Austria, Turkey, Bavaria,
Saxony and Bulgaria. The Entente was able to match
this array with Russia, India, Japan, Belgium, Italy and
Serbia. 1
Prophecies for the more sophisticated members of the
community take on subtler forms. Thus Professor Lanessan
took a hand in explaining Pourquoi les Germains seront
vaincus, (Paris, 1915). In 1916 Lloyd George was said to
have remarked to Emile Vandervelde of Belgium that —
1 1 Graux. as cited, I : 244.
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England declared war in 1914, began it in 1915, developed
it in 1916 and will finish it in 1917.
It seems that in the main, however, the canny Welshman
confined himself to the excellent formula:
We will finish the War when we have attained our
objective.
There is a great advantage in having certain unofficia l
i nterpreters of the War to the public who can be relied upon
to present matters in their most flattering light. Frank
Symonds in the United States, Colonel Rcpington in England \
and Commander Rousset in France securedlhe confidence
of the public and were of the greatest assistance to the
authorities, for they were cogs in the machinery by which
those interpretations least damaging to public moral were
circulated. They were able to explain why retreats were
“ strategic retirements," and how evacuations could be
" rectifications of the line."
One of the questions which rises in the conduct of the
War is how to handle the news of losses. The possible
policies vary all the way from complete suppression to
immediate disclosure. When Winston Churchill was at
the Admiralty he was characterized by the Chief Naval
Censor as
a bit of a gambler, i.e., he would hold on to a bit of bad
news for a time on the chance of getting a bit of good news
to publish as an offset, and I must say that it not infre-
quently came off ! On the other hand, there were days
when it did not, and then there was a sort or “ Black
Monday '* atmosphere about— a bad '* settling day ” sort
of look on all our faces.
After he left I always pleaded for the immediate publica-
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110 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
tion of disasters or, at any rate, that they should be made
known as soon as the number of casualties had been reported
and the relatives informed ; and this soon became more or
less the practice.*
The British followed the policy of complete silence when
they lost the battleship Audacious on the 27th of October,
1914, by a mine off the Irish coast. It was never officially
acknowledged while the War lasted, and was solemnly
reported after the armistice. The Germans were able to
make a great deal of capital out of the reticence of the
British in the early days, and it was not until the Jutland
affair that the British were able, by a daring stroke, to
recapture confidence at home and abroad. The Germans
announced by wireless on the 31st of May that they had won
a great naval victory. Damaged ships and messages to
relatives began to come along the east coast of England,
and silence was no longer feasible. The official communique
for the 2nd of June made a clean breast of the British losses
as so far reported. The shock was stupendous. When the
enemy losses began to come in later in the day, the general
consternation was somewhat assuaged. The Germans were
slowly constrained to admit the truth. 8
It is probably sound, on the whole, to reveal losses when
they come, and to trust to the ingenious multiplication of
favourable news to neutralize the effect. Special problems
arise in connection with losses which are known only in a
general way to the enemy. Brownrigg opposed the publica-
* Rear- Admiral Sir Douglas Brownrigg, Indiscretions of the Naval Censor.
p. 13-
* Brownrigg tells the story from the British point of view in Chapter 4
of the book cited.
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tion of British losses of merchant ships from enemy sub-
marines and mines on the ground that the enemy would,
in this way, be supplied with precise information that he
would not otherwise get. The public demand for enlighten-
ment on the progress of the submarine war was so insistent
that a compromise was ultimately arrived at. At first,
the number of ships lost per week was announced, with no
further particulars, and later, the tonnage lost per week
was substituted for the number of ships. This suggests
a sound principle in dealing with such matters. When the
losses are of such a character that the enemy cannot be
entirely certain of them, the disclosure ought to take a
summary and not a particularized form. A definite total
is necessary in order to allay the wild exaggerations of
alarmist whispers.
^^nother problem which arises in the conduct of war is |
how to treat new devices of warfare which it is proposed to ,
introduce. Every new innovation by a belligerent is likely
to be welcomed at home as a promise of victory, and to be
condemned abroad as a crime against humanity^ But
there arc exceptions to this rule, and for the sake of squeamish
souls at home, who may deplore the introduction of
particularly devastating measures, a careful campaign of
preparation should be launched. If it is reported that the
enemy has just adopted a new device, cries will arise instantly
for its adoption as a measure of justifiable reprisal. Aerial
bombardment and the use of gas were supposed by both the
Allied and the German publics to be the product of the
nefarious genius of the other side. The submarine was
defended in Germany as a reply to the brutal British blockade
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which had so far disregarded the bounds of international
law as to become a weapon of attack against the old and the
very young, the women and the children, rather than against
the fighting men. The Government defended the order
to sink without warning, by telling how the Allies took
advantage of the kind heart of a certain submarine com-
mander. An English sailor, dressed in women’s clothes, and
with a bundle which appeared to be a baby, stood on the
deck of a boat which a submarine had just stopped. The
submarine came up to take off the unfortunate woman
before sinking the ship, when the disguised sailor sud-
denly dropped a bomb- on the submarine, destroying it
instantly.
For those very numerous members of the nation who
visualize war as a battle of goliaths, the propaganda of
c onfide nt ip is indispensable. It is a reassuring
experience to rea<j a well-written biography of a public
character. Otto Krack wrote a popular Life of Ludendorff,
and Harold Begbie glorified Kitchener in his book, Kitchener,
Organiser of Victory. General Paul von Hindenburg was
written up by Bernard von Hindenburg.
Reports of heroic achievement in routine or exceptional
jobs strengthen the assurance of ultimate victory. To the
tales from the trenches must be added the less dramatic
tale of how the country is solidly behind the front in food
saving, munition making, and relief work. Rudolf Hans
Bartsch took a trip around Germany and described Dus
deutsche Volk in schwerer Zeit, a volume which was re-
assuring to the men at the front and encouraging to the
civilians.
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/
^he will to win is intimately related to a chance to win.
The thesis of ultimate victory is indispensable to the conduct
of war, if discouragement is not to sap determination and
to precipitate internal friction and strife^?
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fc)NE prerequisite of a solid front against the enemy is cordial
/relations among allies. ~ Tt is particularly important that allies
1 should stimulate one another by emphasizing their strenuous
exertion in the prosecution of the war. During the last
War the effective entry of America into the struggle came
before Italy had recovered from the collapse of Caporetto.
Weary and discouraged, the Italian people were cynical of
America's whole-hearted sincerity in making war. The
Americans, so it was whispered about, are an industrial
people, who have forgotten how to fight. They arc unwilling
to forsake their prosperous jobs for a post of danger.
America had no army, did not want one, and could not
raise one if she tried. Supposing that an army were actually
raised, the submarines would sink all transports capable
of bringing it to Europe. And, anyhow, American officers
and soldiers were too inexperienced to matter much . 1
The ringing keynote of American propaganda in Italy
was, ther efore, th e invincible determination of America to
s mash the Central Power s, as revealed by tier war^pre-
parations. The New York Office of the Committee on
Public Information prepared items of news which were
distributed through the Agenzi Stefani, the largest Press
1 On the Italian situation, see C. E. Mernam, '* American Publicity in
Italy," A met ican Political Science Review. November. 1919.
114
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'^Association. These items had to do with military pre-
paration, ship building, food conservation. Liberty Loans.
Red Cross and other civilian services. A special mimeo-
graphed news letter was addressed to influential Italians.
Italian journalists were selected to tour America and
report their impressions. Italians who lived in America
were encouraged to write letters home, telling about the
great American effort. Newspapers were induced to co-
operate, pamphlets and booklets were put in print, Americans
(especially of Italian origin) were sent over to speak, and
motion picture reels and lantern slides were furnished in
great profusion. American photographs and postcards,
ribbons and buttons, posters, flags, music and exhibits were
multiplied everywhere. A detachment of real, live American
soldiers was brought to Italy, less for fighting than for
exhibition purposes, and they aroused tremendous enthu-
siasm as the advance guard of America’s contingent.
The dominating theme in all this was America’s strenuous
effort to win the War. The head of the Mission to Italy
writes,
Our only inaccuracy consisted in understating the
magnitude of American preparations. We felt that since
Americans had a reputation as boasters it would be better
to understate than to overstate, and were greatly pleased
to receive, after having been in Italy for some months, a
friendly criticism from an Italian who declared that the
information that we were furnishing did not reveal the
full strength of America’s effort.
Strenuousness in the conduct of the war is not, of itself,
sufficient to arouse the enthusiasm of an ally, if there is atw
reason to suspect that the war aims of one ally are at cross
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purposes with those of another. The English were con-
tinually forced to deal with an undercurrent of suspicion
in France that victory would be used to the disadvantage
of France. Persistent rumours crept about that the English
were not only planning to stay in Calais, as shown by the
fact that they were building quarters of permanent material,
but that they were chiefly instrumental in prolonging the
War for the sole purpose of using French blood to drown a
dangerous commercial rival. In the hard winter of 1917
Mr. Wickham Steed, of the London Times, was appalled
to discover how much headway had been made by the
insinuation that a favourable peace could be secured at any
time, if England were willing to return the colonies which
she had taken from Germany.
Steed seized the opportunity in one of his lectures to
explain that the former colonies of Germany could never
be disposed of at the arbitrary whim of Downing Street.
The British Empire was no longer, strictly speaking, an
Empire ; it had become a Commonwealth of Nations, whose
component members had spilt their blood in these former
German territories, and would never consent to permit
Downing Street to use them as mere bargaining points.
Steed believed that it was only by explaining the con-
stitutional facts of the British Empire that the rumour
could be squashed once and for all. 1
Some of the lukewarmness of Italy toward American
participation in the War was due to the widely circulated
assertion that America had entered the War to capture the
commercial supremacy of the world. The American plan
1 See Steed. Through Thirty Yean. II : 135
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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was to loan vast sums to the impoverished Governments of
Europe and, once the War terminated, to demand com-
pensation of an unspecified, but alarming kind. This
subtle campaign of insinuation and suspicion was met by a
vigorous Wilsonian propaganda, which dwelt upon the
disinterested and humanitarian character of America’s war
The French were grieved to discover that American
opinion was by no means united in support of the thesis
that Alsace and Lorraine should be handed over to Franco
at the end of hostilities. The French War Mission to the
United States busied itself to convert the Americans, and
the French High Commissioner, M. Tardieu, strained every
nerve in this direction. A few months after his arrival in
May, 1917, he takes pleasure in recording,
this state of opinion was entirely changed. I venture to
believe that the activities of my co-workers and myself,
the 15,000 lectures in English where young officers, with
all the authority of their war record and of their wounds,
presented the pitiful situation of the captive provinces,
had something to do with this transformation. (He
organized an Association of Alsatians and Lorrainers in
America.) Thousands of huge posters, reproducing
Henner’s Alsacienne with the text of the Bordeaux protest
. . . had carried the meaning and scope of our claim to
every State in the Union. 1
The process of " selling ” one country to another is
illustrated by the campaign to secure American support,
which was waged by the friends of Lithuania in 1919. The
Lithuanian National Committee retained a public relations
1 Andr6 Tardieu, The Truth About the Treaty, p. 240.
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counsel to conduct a campaign which was practically tanta-
mount to encouraging an ally to accept the aims (complete
independence) desired by its minor partner. The following
moves were made by the public relations counsel :
He had an exhaustive study made of every conceivable
aspect of the problem of Lithuania from its remote and
recent history and ethnic origins to its present-day marriage
customs and its popular recreations. He divided his
material into various categories, based primarily on the
public to which it would probably make its appeal. For
the amateur ethnologist he provided interest and accurate
data of the racial origins of Lithuania. To the student of
languages he appealed with authentic and well-written
studies of the development of the Lithuanian language from
its origins in Sanscrit. He told the “ sporting fan ” about
Lithuanian sports, and he told the women about Lithuanian
clothes. He told the jeweller about amber and provided
the music lovers with concerts of Lithuanian music.
To the senators he gave the facts about Lithuania which
would give them basis for favourable action. To the
members of the House of Representatives he did likewise.
He reflected to those communities whose crystallized
opinions would be helpful in guiding other opinions facts
which gave them basis for conclusions favourable to
Lithuania.
A series of events which would carry with them the
desired implications were planned and executed Mass
meetings were held in different 6ities ; petitions were
drawn, signed and presented ; pilgrims made calls upon
Senate and House of Representatives Committees. All
the avenues of approach to the public were utilized to
capitalize the public interest and bring public action. The
mails carried statements of Lithuania’s position to individ-
uals who might be interested. The lecture platform
resounded to Lithuania's appeal. Newspaper advertising
was bought and paid for. The radio carried the message
of speakers to the public. Motion pictures reached the
patrons of moving picture houses.
Little by little, and phase by phase, the public, the
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Press, and the Government officials acquired a knowledge
of the customs, the character, and the problem of Lithuania
and the small Baltic nation that was seeking its freedom.
When the Lithuanian Information Bureau went before
the Press Associations to correct inaccurate or misleading
Polish news about the Lithuanian situation, it came there
as representative of a group which had figured largely in
American news for a number of weeks, as a result of the
advice and activities of its public relations counsel. In the
same way, when delegations of Americans, interested in the
Lithuanian problem, appeared before the members of Con-
gress or officials of the State Department, they came there
as spokesmen for a country which was no longer ignored. 1
This sort of propaganda needs to be supplemented by
constant assertions of respect and esteem. The Allies
observed one another's chief holidays. The
4th of July was spread far and wide in Europe. American
propagandists staged a great demonstration in honour of
Italy's entry into the World War (May 24th). The public
addresses and statements issued by the Inter-Allied War
Missions consisted in fulsome phraseology which rang true
in moments of profound emotional agitation.*
Each ally ought to re-enforce the themes of domestic 1
propaganda at every point. They must stimulate each other
to realize that their own interests are at once threatened and
obstructed, by the enemy. It was failure on this point that
may have been partly responsible for the defection of
revolutionary Russia from the ranks of the Entente. Colonel
Robins was sent over to Russia to aid Colonel Thompson
1 E. L Rernays, Crystallizing Public Opinion, pp. 24-27.
* See F. W. Halsey (cd.), Balfour, Viviatti ar.d Joffrc; The Imperial
Japanese Mission, Washington, 1918; America’s Message to the Russian
People. Addresses by the Members of the Special Diplomatic Mission of
the United Slates to Russia in the Year 1917, Boston, 1918 ; Ren6 Viviani,
La Mission Fran+aise en Amlriqae, Paris, 19x7.
r
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of the American Red Cross, and his version of what happened
in Russia is a matter of public record in the hearing con-
ducted before a Senatorial investigating committee. Colonel
Robins went out to see what the soldiers were thinking, and
when he came back, Colonel Thompson asked him :
“ Now, this thing is cutting deep, is it not — this thing
that is going through Russia— this defeatist culture ? "
I said : “ Yes, Colonel ; and it tends to disorganize the
whole Russian social fabric.” He said, “ Well, what about
the Allied propaganda ? ” I said : “ Colonel, that is worse
than nothing.” The Allied propaganda at that hour.
Senator Overman, was this : Pictures and written words
about how great France is, how tremendous England is,
how overwhelming America is. ” We will have 20,000
airplanes on the front in a few weeks. In a few months
wc will have 4,000,000 soldiers. Wc will win the war in
a w r alk.” The peasant moujik said : “ Oh, is that so ?
Well, if the Allies are going to win the war in a walk, we
who have been lighting and working a long time will go
back and see the folks at home " ; and the real effect of
the Allied propaganda was to weaken the moral instead
of strengthening it. if I am any judge of the facts.
It was agreed among us that there was an answer that
was close to the ground, and that was genuine — an effort to
interpret this to revolutionary Russia, cursed by the Tsar's
espousal of the Allied cause in the first instance, and by
all the cross-currents that followed ; that, although it was
not possible at all, I knew, to get that massed revolutionary
mind to think as we thought as Allies, it was possible to
get them to fight Germany to save the Revolution ; and if
they served the cause, wc did not care anything about what
they thought, and we said, “ This is the situation : We have
got to interpret the holding of the front and the defeat of
German militarist autocracy into terms of saving the
Revolution ; and it happens to be true. We have got to say
that, if the German militarist autocracy wins, the Russian
Revolution is doomed. W'e have got to picture it until the
average soldier and peasant sees behind the German
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bayonets the barons and feudal landlords coming to take
back the land ; behind the German bayonets the feudal
masters of industry coming back to transmute the 8 hours
and 15 roubles of the Revolution back to the 2 roubles and
12 hours of the semi slave days before the Revolution in the
factories, mills, and mines. We have got to have them see
that behind the German bayonets are the grand dukes
coming to destroy their local self-governing soviets and
revolutionary councils. If we do that, we can save the
situation.
In the second or third conference on this matter the
question of money came up. It was a large enterprise.
" How are you going to do it ? ” Well, it was perfectly
apparent that you could not do it. There was no machinery
to doit, no American or Allied bureau to do it. The Allies
shared in the common curse of the autocracy in the mind of
peasant Russia. It had to be Russian, and it had to be
revolutionary.
There was in the Winter Palace at that time Madame
Breshkovsky, that old and yet heroic figure, possibly the
greatest revolutionary figure at that time. Madame
Breshkovsky, after 40 years of service in Russia for the
Revolution, was now at the Winter Palace in Pctrograd,
having come back from Siberia in a triumphal journey with
great celebrations, having been received in Petrograd by
one of the greatest gatherings in the history of that city —
this old. peasant woman and revolutionist received in the
great railroad station in the chamber of the Tsar, honoured
by the ministers of the government, and all that sort of
thing. She was now in the Winter Palace, in the Grand
Duke's suite that looked out over the Neva to Peter and
Paul, where she had been three years a prisoner. It was
a dramatic, a tremendous setting. I had known her,
known her for 12 years, known her when she was in this
country ; had helped her in some of her work at that time.
I knew Nicholas Tchaikovsky, a thoroughly sincere and
genuine revolutionist, and at that time the head of the
Peasant Co-operative in Russia.
It was agreed by Col. Thompson that there should be
organized a committee on civic education for free Russia.
Madame Breshkovsky should be chairman of the committee ;
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and as members there should be Nicholas Tchaikovsky ;
Lazaroff, the Russian revolutionist, who had been head of
the milk station or dairy in Switzerland, which was really
an underground station for the Russian Revolution, for
many years, and well known with credit through service
to his country ; Gen. Neuslakovsky, the most trusted
member of Kerensky's general staff, who was in active
co-opcration with this committee from the military angle ;
and David Soskice, Kerensky’s private secretary. They
were to form the committee on “ Civic education in Free
Russia." The programme was this : " We will begin by
buying some newspapers, and with other publicity we will
prepare simple statements in peasant patois and in the
general terms of the Russian peasant’s and workingman's
mind, by Russian peasants and workmen, not by intelli-
gentsia. We will send into the ranks and into the peasant
villages this new gospel of fighting German militarist
autocracy ; not to serve the Allies but to save the Revolu-
tion. 1
Colonel William B. Thompson spent one million dollars
of his own money on this sort of propaganda in an effort
to stave off the defection of Russia.*
At the first of the War the keynote of the Allied pro-
paganda was very property the thesis of ultimate victory
against an aggressive Germany. It required all the ingenuity
of the Allied representatives in Russia to bolster the Russian
moral during the months of August and September when
the French and British armies were recoiling before the
German avalanche. The French Ambassador, writing in his
diary of those days, records :
I have seen to it that these events should be presented
by the Russian Press in the most suitable (and perhaps the
truest) light, i.e., as a temporary and methodical retire-
1 66 th Congress, 1st Sess., Sen. Doc. .Vo. 6a. 3 : 775 et seg.
* One of the novelties of the propaganda to keep Russia in the War
was the organization of a battalion of Russian women to shame the men
into fighting Germany.
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ment, a prelude to a volte face in the near future for the
purposes of a more formidable and vigorous offensive.
All the papers support this theory . 1
He was confronted by this situation :
Financial circles in Petrograd are in continuous communi-
cation with Germany through Sweden, and all their views
on the war are inspired by Berlin.
The thesis they have been expounding during the last
few weeks bears a thoroughly German stamp. We must
see things as they are, they say. The two groups of
belligerents must realize that neither will ever succeed in
vanquishing and really crushing the other. The war will
inevitably end in arrangements and compromise. In that
case, the sooner the better. If the hostilities continue, the
Austro-Germans will organize an enormous fortified line
around their present conquests, and make it impregnable.
So in the future let us give up these futile offensives ; with
the inviolable protection of their trenches, they will
patiently wait until their disheartened adversaries moderate
their demands. Thus peace will inevitably be negotiated
on the basis of territorial pledges.
... I never fail to reply that it is our enemies’ vital
interest to obtain a swift decision, because, when all is
said and done, their material resources are limited, while
ours are practically inexhaustible. In any case the German
General Staff is condemned by its theories to preserve an
offensive strategy.*
There are circumstances in which the unity of operations '
is seriously prejudiced by stimulating the self-confidence of »
an ally. The Germans were fearful lest the Austrian and
Hungarian authorities might grow too sanguine of the
future and resent their subordination to the northern ally.*
The propaganda which is directed to disaffected groups
1 Palasologue, An Ambassador's Memoirs, I : 103.
* Palaoioguc, as cited, II : 108.
• Nicolai. N achrichtendienst. Prtsse, urtd V oikssltntmung im Welktrieg , 59.
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inside a nation may be powerfully reinforced by inter-
Allied co-operation. The Catholics of Italy were not only
subjected to the appeals of certain Italian leaders who were
friendly to the Allies, but from such men as Cardinal Gibbons,
Cardinal Farley and Cardinal O’Connell, of the American
hierarchy. The Labour groups of Italy were reached, not
alone by pro-Ally leaders at home, but by a visiting selection of
Radicals from abroad. The Americans brought over
Alexander Howat (“ the man who never lost a strike”) and
John Spargo.
Inter-Allied propagandas of friendship require a reciprocal
control of attitudes. Most of the friendly sentiments toward
an ally are manufactured by one country among its own
population. The stimulation of pro-ally emotions at home
is more important than the stimulation of pro-ally sentiments
abroad. The themes to employ are identical with the ones
which have already been enumerated in connection with the
problem of arousing an ally.
Sometimes the business of retouching the figure of an
ally in the public mind is a delicate and precarious operation.
Arthur Meyer frankly marvelled at the extent of th erapproche-
ment between France and England, for he co.uld remember
when the children of Paris were chanting the couplet :
Jamais, jamais en France
L’Anglais nc rdgnera !'
Sometimes a frank apology helps, as when the celebrated
writer, Pierre Loti, of the French Academy, published in
the Figaro his plea to Serbia ;
Pauvre. petite Serbie. devenue tout k coup martyre et
sublime, je voudrais au moins lui ramener les quelqus's
1 Lt (j aulas, October 19. 1914.
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cours fran^ais quc mon dernier livre a peut-6tre cloigncs
d'elle. 1
The most delicate problem was how to evoke a pro-
Russian response in the ranks of the British public. For
man}' years the traditional menace to the Empire had been
Russia, and not Germany, and the stories of Russian
absolutism froze the blood of a nation inoculated, with
parliamentarism. The success in revamping the public
attitude was indeed notable, and Basil Thompson, head of
Scotland Yard, looks back upon it rather cynically from the
vantage ground of subsequent years :
It is strange, now, to think that in March, 1915, Russia
was thought in England to be breathing a new inspiration
to the West. It was said that the Crusader spirit was
alive again, that the whole Russian nation was inspired
with a determination to rescue Constantinople for Christiani-
ty, and to win again the holy sepulchre ; . . . vodka was
prohibited with the unanimous approval of the nation ;
. . . crime had almost disappeared among the peasants. . .
If they were successful in the war they were told that there
would be a struggle between their religious idealism and
their high ethical instincts and the monster of western
materialism from which, so far, they had kept themselves
clean. All this was honestly believed by persons who
thought they knew Russia ; now, after a short six years,,
their voices are heard no more.*
When a bond of traditional friendship unites two countries, \
it is simple to invoke it for emergencies. In this style does
Gaston Riou welcome the Americans in his Lafayette, nous
voild ! (Paris, 1917.)
1 August 8, 1914.
9 Queer People, p. 63. Should the exigencies of the international situa-
tion require it, this quotation can be used to cast aspersions on post-war
reaction in England.
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Important as the maintenance of friendly relations
between the nations fighting on one side really is, the crucial
problem for the outcome of the war often is the attitude
of the neutrals. ! The essential problem in controlling neutral
attitudes is to lead the neutral to identify your enemy as his
enemy and your aims as his aims. ;
There is an imperceptible slant in the war news, which
comes from one side rather than another, which leads to the
propagation of a powerful bias toward the contending
nations. Almost inadvertently one comes to speak of
“ our victory,” " the enemy retired,” or “ our lines held."
The fact that E ngland controlled the cab les to the United
States was a precio us advan tage in her favour The Ger-
mans were never able to perfect'Weir^wireless service to
the point of competing with the cables on a plane of equality.
Less from original bias than from a subtle entanglement in
the bias of the news, there appeared in certain New York
papers headlines of this character, even when the Germans
were pounding down through Belgium and northern France :
BELGIUM BEATS GERMANS; ENGLISH ARMY
TO AID HER.
GERMANS LOSE THOUSANDS IN BELGIUM.
ROUT OF GERMANS IN BELGIUM TURNED INTO
A SLAUGHTER.
The direct representation of the other side as an enemy
of the neutrals may take a multitude of forms. As early as
1915 a book was devoted to the horrible fate of America
in case Germany should win the War. In J. Bernard
Walker’s America Fallen : A Sequel to the European War,
the Germans sack New York (London, 1915) This time-
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honoured device was employed at the time of the Franco-
Prussian war to incite England against Germany. In
Blackwood's Magazine for April, 1871, appeared an article
called “ The Fall of England, or the Battle of Dorking, 11
which was reprinted as a pamphlet and sold broadcast.
The Germans found it impossible to raise the claim that
Great Britain intended to attack America, since the British
were obviously very much engaged in Western Europe.
Instead, they insinuated that the attack upon America
would come by the characteristically English method of
indirection. Japan would do the will of England. What
other interpretation, indeed, could there be placed upon the
Anglo- Japanese Alliance ? Why is Japan
feverishly engaged in ship building and has now under way
168,000 tpns of shipping ?
W'e Americans feel safe, peaceful and conceited as we
sell to Europe tools with which they murder each other, and
as we say to ourselves, " We are too big to be in danger. 1 ’
W r e would feel differently if we knew that Japan,
representing all Asia, all the yellow race, had decided that
the moment had arrived to make the attack, and to make
both sides of the Pacific Japanese.'
Jefferson Jones viewed The Fall of Tsingtau (New York,
1915) with alarm, and the book was of some aid in arousing
suspicion of the Japanese.
The heterogeneous composition of the American community
lent itself to special propagandas. It was possible to arouse
the Jews against the Russians, the Irish against the British,
the Westerners against the Japanese, and (for some time)
1 S. Ivor Stephen -(Szinnyey), Neutrality? The Crucifixion of Public
Opinion. Pront an Amtrican Point of View, Chicago, 1916, p. 18. This
is a repository of German propaganda themes.
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the Italians against the French. The Entente could appeal
to the English. French. Scotch, Welsh. Russian, Serbian,
Rumanian elements, and, after the growth of anti-Austro-
Hungarian sentiment, to the South Slavs and the Czecho-
slovaks and the Poles.
The hereditary enemy of America, the Erbfeind, was
England, and upon the anti-English chord the Germans
strummed incessantly. It was England who burned
Washington in 1814, and drew from Jefferson the bitter
saying that
It was reserved for England to show that Napoleon in
atrocity was an infant compared to her ministers and
generals.
It was, moreover, the dastardly English who stirred up
the Indians to massacre the Americans who lived on the
frontier during the Revolutionary War, and the War of
1812. Perfidious Albion is still trying to put something
over, and Mr. O’Reilly, through the hospitable columns of
the Hearst press, asked :
Are we not being bribed to sacrifice our own best interests
as well as our moral scruples, and to send arms to England,
so that then she can exterminate the Germans and obliterate
Germany, and possess herself of Germany’s commerce and
colonies ? x
The Central Powers were set forth as the champions of
the traditional American principle of a free sea. This
thesis was argued in William Bayard Hale’s pamphlet,
American Rights and British Pretensions on the Seas. 1 The
1 Cited in Stephen, as cited, p. 171.
2 See also. H. L. Gordon, The Peril of the United Slates; Rudolf Cronau,
Do we need a Third War for Independence ?
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British offset this appeal by exposing the German plans to
expand into South America after the. War, regardless of the
Monroe Doctrine, and to conquer the world for German
trade, by cementing a European bloc. 1 The British likewise
rose to assert that they were fighting a war of democracy
versus militarism and autocracy, and they published General
Bernhardi’s Germany and the Next War, to convict the whole
nation. A brilliant rationalization such as that of H. G.
Wells in Mr. Bulling Sees it Through, won a large audience
in America.
Hand in hand with other plans must go the systematic
vilification of the enemy. During the Franco-Prussian War
the French raised a great outcry in England at the proposed
bombardment of Paris, bitterly assailing the Germans for
their barbarous indifference to the priceless treasures of
civilization. Bismarck was quite aware of the importance
of this appeal to neutral sentiment, and instructed one of
his propaganda secretaries to draft an article for the Press on
this theme :
If the French wanted to preserve their monuments and
collections of books and pictures from the dangers of war,
they should not have surrounded them with fortifications.
Besides, the French themselves did not hesitate for a
moment to bombard Rome, which contained monuments
of far greater value, the destruction of which would have
been an irretrievable loss. 1
When the London Standard, which was hostile to the
Germans during the War of 1870, printed a story by the
1 See Andr6 CMradame, The Pan-German Plot Unmasked. New York.
1916. Mildred S. Wertheimer restored The Pan-German League to its
proper perspective in 1924- Roland G. Usher had written a book on
Pan-Germanism which was published in 1913, and given a renewed lease
on life by the Entente sympathizers after 1914 See also his The Winning
of the War, New York and London. 1918.
Busch, Bismarck, I : 158. zO September, 1870.
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Due de Fitzjames, in which various Prussian abominations
at Bazeillcs were described, Bismarck dictated an answer
to be transmitted to the English Press. He argued that the
horrors of the War were not horrors of the Germans, but of
the foolish stories of Prussian cruelty which frightened the
peasants into deserting their homes where they would have
been secure. He attacked the reliability of the Due as
witness. 1
During the same War, the French prepared a pamphlet
for circulation at home and abroad which was entitled La
Guerre commc la font les Prussiens. Bismarck instructed Busch,
Please write to Berlin that they should put together
something of this description from our point of view,
quoting all the cruelties, barbarities and breaches of the
Geneva Convention committed by the French. Not too
much, however, or no one will read it, and it must be done
speedily. 1
During the World War the neutrals were deluged with
propaganda stuff, in which the sins of the enemy were
exposed to public gaze. Besides the appeal to the general
sentiment of the neutral nation, hosts of special appeals
were launched. The Germans circulated an appeal to
Protestants in neutral countries to rise and protest against
the mistreatment of missionaries by the English. Rev. W.
Stark prepared a pamphlet on The Martyrdom of the Evan -
gelical Missionaries in Cameroon , 1914, (Berlin, 1914).
Such damages as were inflicted in the occupied territories to
churches were assigned to the Germans. The Catholics,
as the chief sufferers, organized a special propaganda com-
1 Busch, Bismarck. I : 148. 22 September, 1871.
* Busch, Bismarck, I : 406. 4 February, 1871.
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mittee to work on foreign Catholic opinion. The nature of
its work appears from the following list :
Rene le Cholleux, Notre Dame de Bribikres ; V All emagne et
les Allies devant la conscience chretienne (pref. Mgr.
Alfred Baudrillart).
La Guerre Allemar.de et le Catholicisme.
Raoul Narsy, Le Supplice de Louvain.
L'£veil de l' A me jr anfaise devant iappel aux armes.
L'Abb6 Pasquier, Le Prutestantisme Allemand.
L’AbbtS E. Foulon, Arras sous les Obus.
Mgr. Pierre Batiffol published his letter, A un neutre
catholique in 1915, for the edification of the non-combatants.
The French Protestants followed the example of their
Catholic brethren, and established a committee for foreign
propaganda and advertised Nos sanUuaires devasUs. The
Italians used the same weapon in the pamphlet, Austrian
Barbarities against Italian Churches (Florence, 1917).
This atrocity propaganda was conducted with great
ability in America, particularly by the Allies. A mass
meeting at Carnegie Hall in New York protested against
the treatment of the Belgians. December 18th, 1916. Rector
Manning presided, and there were addresses by the Hon.
James M. Beck, Alton B. Parker, Elihu Root, and telegrams
from Theodore Roosevelt, Joseph H. Choate, and Archbishop
Ireland. An appeal from Cardinal Mercier was read, and
the whole affair procured the widest publicity in the Press.
The Russian Government went so far as to address a
special memorandum to neutral powers, for the purpose of
protesting against the alleged slanders which the Central
Powers were industriously circulating about the conduct of
her troops. She likewise objected to the Violations of Laws
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and Rules of Warfare, committed by German and Austro-
Hungarian troops in Russia (1915). The Germans were
outmanoeuvred by the British, who secured the services of the
former Ambassador Bryce to serve on an atrocity commission.
The protest which the Kaiser addressed to the President of
the United States against the franc-tireur excesses of the
Belgians proved ineffectual. They compiled a mass of
material for the purpose of incriminating the Belgians, such
as the V olkerrechtswidrige Riihrung des belgischen Volks-
krieges, put out by the Foreign Office, May 10th, 1915. They
advertised the misdeeds of the invading Russians in East
Prussia, and sharply criticized the mistreatment of German
civilians and military prisoners abroad. 1 The Belgians
replied officially to the charges lodged against them, but one
of the best indirect replies was a study made by Fernand van
Langcnhove, Scientific Secretary of the Solvay Institute of
Sociology at Brussels, on The Growth of a Legend. A Study,
based upon the German accounts of Francs-Tireurs and
" Atrocities." The English version of the work had a
Preface by the eminent American social psychologist, J. Mark
Baldwin, a diligent Francophile during the entire War.*
With the air and method of a serious study in collective
psychology the book treated the franc-tireur stories as
legends.
For circulation in America the Germans prepared an
appeal to race prejudice, called Employment contrary to
1 For example, see Auswartiges Amt., Grcufliaten russischer Truppen
gegen deulsehe Civil per sonen und deutsche Kriegsgefargene, 1915 ; K. Jiinger
and Dr. H. Vadrting, Die Behandiung der Deutschcn in England, Frankreich
und Rusiland, Berlin, 1915.
* Translated by E. B. Sherlock. New York and London, 1916.
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International Law o] Coloured Troops upon the European
Arena of War by England and France (Berlin, 1915).
Indeed, everybody took a whirl at blackguarding his .«
enemies and whitewashing himself. All the minorities in <
America had their special propaganda, issuing such things *
as Austro-Hungarian Judicial Crimes (Chicago, no date),
prepared by the Jugo-Slav Committee in North America.
As late as 1918 the Bulgarians tried to reach the neutral
world with a defence and a counter-thrust by publishing
Les Atrojites Serbes, by M. D. Sopiansky (Lausanne, 1918).
The most important feature, of course, was to secure the
services of an eminent neutral to testify to his own country-
men. Mary Roberts Rinehart (Kings, Queens and Pawns,
1915) and scores of publicists gave their pens to the Allied
cause ; fewer helped to expound the German viewpoint.
The other side is a nefarious plotter and liar, unworthy of
confidence. Frederick William Wile endeavoured to expose
The German- American Plot , the record oj a great failure
(London, 1915), and every idea which convenienced the
plot was dubbed with the damning epithet, “ Pro-German."
The Germans poured out the same dark hints and insinuations
about the members of the American Press and public who
dared disagree with them. The American Truth Society
wrote about the Treason Press, and in this indictment they
meant nearly all the American Press of metropolitan standing,
except Hearst and the Chicago Tribune. It goes without
saying that ex-President Roosevelt came in for vile abuse
from the German sympathizers. Everybody tried to tar
the other fellow with the same stick. Rumours of propa-
ganda and bribery fell thick and fast.
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Direct appeals to neutral opinion continued all through
the conflict. In 1914 James Bryce discussed the Neutral
Nations and the War. The Germans used one of their
Swiss connections to publish an exposure of Comment
I'Angleterre combat Us neutres (Zurich, 1917) ; to which the
British replied in W'illiam Archer, An die Ncutralen!
Aufruf zur Geduld (191 7). Max Gaetcke discussed Der
grosse Raubkrieg und die Interessen der neutralen Mdchte
(Karlsruhe, 1916), while the French contributions to this
literature included Henri Hauser, La Guerre el le s Neutres.
Etude sur le sentiment dlmocratique dans ses rapports avec la
guerre europlenne (Paris, 1917). and Ernest L6monon, Les
Allies et les Neutres, 1914-16 (Paris, 1917).
To the general appeals were added the special appeals.
The French Federation of Schoolteachers prepared a message,
To the Schoolmistresses and Schoolmasters op all countries.
The famous Aufruf Gelehrter Deutschen, which came early in
the War, provoked the professors abroad to feverish
hyperactivity. One of the numerous replies was intended
for consumption in Southern Europe and South America.
A manifestation was held at the Sorbonne on the 12th of
February, 1915, and the addresses which were delivered
were printed under a favourite title with the French, La
civilisation latine contre la barbaric allemande. For the sake
of interesting the wage earners, an Appeal of the Belgian
Workmen to the Workmen of all Nations appeared in London
in 1916, and a year later, The Condition of the Belgian Work-
men, now Refugees in England.
Besides the direct themes of the order hitherto enumerated
neutral opinion may be reached by indirect, .ones. The
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neutral must be confident of the ultimate success of your /
side. Georges Hoog published his Lettres aux neutres sur
V union sacrie, to impress the neutrals with the solidarity
of his country. Books of type of Robert Grant, Their
Spirit. Some Impressions o] the English and French during
the Summer of 1916, reassure the friends of one side and
affect the indifferent. The heroism and determination of a
belligerent can be illustrated in military and civilian war
letters, such as War Letters from France (edited by A. de
Lapradelle and Frederick Coudert, New York and London,
1916). The pictorial medium was chosen by the Information
Department of the British Foreign Office, to impress the
neutrals with British strength, and the film called Britain
Prepared, was widely circulated. 1
The crucial importance of the foreign correspondent is
alluded to by Theodore Roosevelt in his letter to Sir Edward
Grey, bearing the date, January 22nd, 1915 :
There have been fluctuations in American opinion about
the war. The actions of the German Zeppelins have revived
the feeling in favour of the Allies. But I believe that for
a couple of months preceding this action there had been a
distinct lessening of the feeling for the Allies and a growth
of pro-German feeling. I do not think that this was the
case among the people who were best informed, but I do
think it was the case among the mass of not very well-
1 Rear-Admiral Brownrigg says that some influence unfriendly to Great
Britain caused the film to be exhibited in the United States under the
title, HO W Britain Prepared. Recollections, p, 37. D. W. Griffith, famous
director, has recently recalled the ofler made to him by Bernard Shaw in
IQ»7 to write scenarios for him. This occurred " In 1917. just after 1 had
completed arrangements with the British Government to do some propa-
ganda pictures.” (New York Times, October xith 19*6.) Another of
Mr. Shaw’s propaganda eflorts went astray when the New York Times
divided one of his despatches and left the impression inadvertently that.
Shaw was dressing down the Allies. Mr. Shaw has himself related the last
incident, but professes to have no recollection ol the Griffith rejection.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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informed people, who have little to go upon except what
they read in the newspapers or see at cinematograph shows.
There were several causes for this change. There has been
a very striking contrast between the lavish attentions
showered on American war correspondents by the German
military authorities and the blank refusal to have anything
whatever to do with them by the British and French
Governments. Our best war correspondent on the
whole, is probably Frederick Palmer. He is favourable to
the Allies. But it was the Germans, and not the Allies,
who did everything for him. They did not change his
attitude, but they unquestionably did change the attitude
of many other good men. The only real war news,
written by Americans who are known to and trusted by the
American public, comes from the German side ; as a result
of this, the sympathizers with the cause of the Allies can
hear nothing whatever about the trials and achievements
of the British and French armies. These correspondents
inform me that it is not the generals at the front who raise
objections, but the Home Governments, and in consequence
they get the chance to write for their fellow-countrymen
what happens from the German side, and they are not
given a chance from the side of the Allies. 1 do not find
that the permission granted them by the Germans has inter-
fered with the efficiency of German military operations, and
it has certainly helped the Germans in American public
opinion. It may be that your people do not believe that
American public opinion is of sufficient value to be taken
into account, but, if you think that it should be taken into
account, then it is worth your while considering whether
much of your censorship work and much of your refusal
to allow correspondents at the front has not been a danger
to your cause from the standpoint of the effect on public
opinion without any corresponding military gains. I
realize perfectly that it would be criminal to permit corres-
pondents to act as they acted as late as our own Spanish
War, but as a layman, I feel sure that there has been a
good deal of work of this kind of which I have spoken in
the way of censorship and refusing the correspondents
permission to go to the front, which has not been of the
slightest military service to you, and which has had a very
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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real effect in preventing any rallying of public opinion to
you . 1
One of the most subtle and effective forms of indirect
propaganda is the encour agem ent of everything which draws
the neutral into some form of de facto co-operation with
the belligerent. This may be done in part by playing up
the instances in which a neutral citizen takes arms on behalf
of one or the other belligerent. This phase of propaganda
was discussed in the following letter to the London Times,
dated December 26th, 1916, by an American partisan of the
Entente. It was called “ British Publicity in the United
States,” and read thus :
France has known how to reach the sympathy of Ameri-
cans, and her publicity has been extraordinarily effective.
It has been personal and it has evoked enthusiasm. It has
been written to a great extent by American soldiers in the
French army, each of whom is an endorsement of France.
The presence of every American participant is widely
advertised by the French. He is decorated wherever there
is the least occasion for doing so. He is encouraged to
write of his experiences. Articles and books by American
soldiers of France are published by the score. Alan
Seegar’s Poetry of the Foreign Legion is widely known in
America, and his death was as much regretted in the United
States as that of Rupert Brooke in England. Robert
Herrick, one of our best novelists, joined the American
Ambulance with the avowed purpose of writing a series of
books from the viewpoint of a participant. I was per-
mitted to write and publish the N ole-book of an Attache
without ever submitting it to the French censor. There
are only about 500 Americans in the French army. Yet
in the United States we hear something about them every
day. The newspapers are full of their doings ; every item
of news from them is justly considered as an endorsement of
1 Grey, Twenty-Five Years, II : 150.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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France. In consequence of France’s shrewdly-managed
publicity America is whole-heartedly pro-French.
Because Ian Hay was a participant in the War, albeit
not an American one, the publication of his book in the
United States, and his extended speaking tour, shared
with the books and speeches of Frederick Palmer the
distinction of being the only redeeming bits of British
propaganda. . . . Bruce Baimsfather's drawings and
Raemaeker’s cartoons, still too little known in the United
States, would prove an invaluable influence to mould public
opinion. 1
Further than this, if the neutral power can be drawn into
some form of non-military participation with a belligerent,
his sympathies are likely to crystallize about the object of
his assistance. This is the inner significance of the tremen-
dous campaign to secure aid for Belgian widows and orphans
in America, of which one memento is the pamphlet known
as The Need of the Belgians, prepared by an illustrious
galaxy of literary stars, among whom were Thomas Hardy,
May Sinclair, Arnold Bennett, Will Irwin, John Galsworthy,
Anthony Hope, A. W. Mason, and George Bernard Shaw.
The Committee for Belgian Relief was the sponsor for this
and other details of the campaign.
The Allies succeeded in forging bonds of economic interest
between themselves and America, and against this the
Germans waged a propaganda offensive from the start,
realizing what its implications were to be for American
attitudes. William Bayard Hale wrote The Exportation of
Arms and Munitions of War in 1915, arguing that the Allies
were getting most of the benefit because of the British con-
* Eric Fisher Wood, The Note-book of an Intelligence Officer , 1917. reprints
hl9 letter on page 15. See also James Mark Baldwin, Between Two Wars,
2 vols.. Boston .1926.
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trol of the sea, and that it was tantamount to becoming a
silent partner in the Entente. His booklet was published
under the auspices of the Organization of American Women
for Strict Neutrality, organized for propaganda purposes.
The German propagandists took particular care to reach
out for the women on this particular issue. A memorandum
of one of the conferences of the New York bureau contains
these items :
May 24th, 1915.
All preparations are made for carrying through the
project of poster advertising. The pamphlet entitled
“ Thou Shalt Not Kill,” written by Mr. Hale, has been
printed and will be sent out. Signatures to a petition to
Congress collected by the ladies now number 200.000, and
will in time perhaps reach 600,000. The ladies have
applied for assistance in their campaign to a number of
persons named by Mr. Hale. It is suggested that it be put
up to the ladies to address the petition to the President and
Congress, and not wait until the collection of signatures is
complete before sending it to Washington, but send them,
at once, in batches of about 10,000.
Mr. Hale reports that Mrs. Hale is busy upon propaganda
against the exportation of horses. Mr. Claussen undertakes
to have a correspondingly touching scenario (story of former
fire-brigade mare slaughtered in Flanders) written. 1
Some editorials of William Randolph Hearst were collected
under the title, Let us promote the world's peace, not promote
the world’s warfare in 1915. Martin Ilsen argued the
illegality of the Ammunition Trade in 1915, and the
American Independence League broadcasted a statement by
Charles Nagel on the Traffic in Arms and Ammunition. The
National German- American Alliance published an open letter
by Dr. Charles J. Hexamer to the Committee on Foreign
1 Sen Doc 62, 1395 [Brewing and Liquor Interests, etc.).
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140 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Relations in which these points were reiterated. The
American Truth Society (catering to the Irish) sought to
expose the Peril of American Finance . The British Raid
upon our Resources in 1915.
As Ambassador Bemstorff has remarked, the economic
question was necessarily the centre of gravity of active
propaganda in America. He shrewdly comments upon the
skill of the English in applying trade restriction to America.
They encroached upon the freedom to trade inch and inch,
and only as they stepped in to supply the market which they
curtailed. Bemstorff remarks :
It is characteristic that the declaration of cotton as
unconditional contraband was made public on the very day
on which the American Press was in a state of great excite-
ment over the Arabic case, so that this comparatively
unimportant incident filled the front pages and leading
articles of the newspapers, while the extremely important
economic measure was published in a place where it would
hardly be noticed. 1
The Germans formed an association of Americans to
protest against the cotton contraband, but it did little good.
The cleverest move of the economic propaganda of the
Germans was the provoking of " Issues,” which Bemstorff
has defined as
the attempt by carefully construing individual incidents to
make clear to public opinion the fundamental injustice of
the English encroachments and their far-reaching conse-
quences in practice. The most important case in this
direction is that of the Wilhelmina. According to the
prevailing principles of international law, foodstuffs were
only conditional contraband. They might be imported
into Germany if they were intended for the exclusive use of
1 My Three Years in America, p. 8g.
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the civil population. As, however, England succeeded in
restraining the exporters from any attempt to consign
foodstuffs to Germany, especially as, in view of the enormous
supplies that were being forwarded to our enemies, they
had little interest in such shipment, the question never
reached a clear issue. Herr Albert, therefore, induced an
American firm to ship foodstuffs for the civil population
of Germany on the American steamer Wilhelmina, bound
for Hamburg, by himself undertaking the whole risk from
behind the scenes (Albert was the German purchasing
agent in America).
This scheme went on the rocks because the English, after
capturing the ship, declared a blockade, and the decision
ceased to matter. It was one of the “ Issue ” boats that
put up a problem to the British which Ambassador Walter
Ilincs Page was able to solve. The Dacia , a ship of former
German ownership, which had transferred to American
registry on the outbreak of war, was outfitted with crew,
flag and cotton by Mr. E. N. Breitung, of Marquette, Michigan,
and, after great advertisement, sailed for Germany. A ter-
rific row would have broken out if the British captured the
ship, and Page’s inspiration was to allow a French warship
to capture it. This went through on schedule and not a
chirp was raised in America.'
Neutrals may eventually be drawn into the war by direct J
instigation. The outside propagandist may circulate such
pronouncements as those of Roosevelt, who favoured the
Allies, and they may encourage the activity of the war
party. In Italy, the pro- Ally sentiment was whipped to
the exploding point by d’Annunzio. The story is told thus
by Thomas Nelson Page, American Ambassador to Italy,
1913 to 1919.
1 The story is told in Page's Life and Letters. 1 : 394*
Original fron
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It had for some time been contemplated to unveil a
statue to Garibaldi and “ the Thousand ” at Quarto, the
little port near Genoa from which they had sailed on the
5th of May, fifty-five years before, for the wresting of the
Sicilians from a foreign yoke and the uniting them to the
kingdom of Italy. Great preparations were made for the
celebration of the anniversary of what was one of the most
inspiring events in the history of Italy.
The Cabinet was to attend the ceremony, and it
presently became known that the King and Queen would
also attend. The conviction spread throughout Italy that
the occasion would be availed of to announce Italy's decision
to take her place with the Forces of Liberty battling in
France and declare war. All Italy was on the qui vive.
Then, suddenly, two days before the event was to take
place, the announcement came that, after all, owing to
the gravity of the moment, neither the King nor the Cabinet
would attend the unveiling. . .
The absence of the King and the Cabinet from the
celebration at Quarto may have given it a somewhat
different trend, but certainly not one less violent. The
orator of the occasion, Gabriel d’Annunzio, the poet and
novelist, who had come from France for the purpose,
delivered with telling effect an address which was ra tlier
a lyrical rhapsody on Italian liberty and aspiration than an
historical address. It fell on ears attuned to receive it,
and was. in fact, a firebrand stuck into a magazine charged
and ready for the explosion. That night the streets of
Genoa were choked with the crowds that apotheosized
Garibaldi and the orator, d’Annunzio, and clamoured for
war. After this it was a continued progression — nothing
could stop it. . .
The orator of Quarto came to Rome in a sort of triumphal
procession, and for days spoke in a species of lyric frenzy,
from hotel balconies or in theatres to excited crowds who
followed him into a state of exaltation. On the 14th he
spoke in the Constanza Opera House, which was heavily
guarded, all approaches being picketed, by a strong force of
police and soldiers, including an extra force of cavalry to
preserve order and prevent demonstrations before the
Government offices and the Embassies of the Central
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Empires. The overflow demonstrants, left outside of the
auditorium, resisted all efforts to disperse them, building
barricades and tearing down a rear wall around an open lot
adjoining the Opera House to use as missiles against the
soldiers should the latter be too fjrm in attempting to clear
the streets. 1
When the state of neutral sentiment seems to be ebbing
steadily away from the belligerent toward whom it is hoped
to direct it, the propagandist may retire to certain last lines
of defence. The Germans in the United States did what
they could to encourage pacifist sentiment. The American
League to Limit Armaments had been organized in 1914, by
sincere pacifists who hoped to keep America out of the
European maelstrom. This later developed into the Ameri-
can Union against Militarism, one of whose offshoots sub-
sequently became the National Civil Liberties Bureau. The
American Union Against Militarism organized the Collegiate
Anti-Militarism League, and co-operated with numerous
Peace Unions and Christian Socialist Fellowship organiza-
tions. The American Neutral Conference Committee was an
emergency group which had the objective indicated by its
name. The Emergency Peace Federation came to an early
end, as did the Conference Committee. The Germans, of
course, got such aid and comfort as they could from the
existence of such societies and played the peace theme
heavily as 1917 approached.
A dangerous idea — from the standpoint of the Allies —
which the Germans propagated in America was that the
Allies were the stumbling block to peace. The British were
genuinely exercised by the progress of the peace drive of the
Germans and Sir Edward Grey confesses that the German
1 Italy and the World War, 209 et seq.
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effort to cast the onus of continuing the War upon the
Entente, was one of the most effective moves which they
made. 1
It may be possible to stir up trouble between two neutrals
and thus tie the hands of the neutral. Such a purpose
appears in the rather amusing story of a German feature
film named “ Patria.” This was a serial photoplay which
was released weekly in two-reel episodes for a span of ten
weeks. It was made under the direction of Whartons; in
upper New York, for the International Film Service Cor-
poration, a Hearst-owned film distributing company, later
re-incorporated as the International Film Service Company
(Incorporated). It was made in 1916, and cost about
$90,000. Mrs. Vernon Castle was the star. WTen it began
to appear, it purported to emphasize the necessity for
preparedness. By the time the first episodes were ready,
the country was already launched upon a preparedness
programme, leaving its anti-Japanese and anti-Mexican
features as the only live ones. The picture shows the great
effort of Japan to conquer America with the aid of the
Mexicans. A Japanese noble, at the head of the secret
service of the Emperor of Japan, was the chief villain.
Japanese troops invaded California, committing horrible
atrocities. The picture was first shown in New York on
the gth January, 1917. The New York American and other
Hearst papers ran the story serially from week to week.
Wlien the anti- Japanese element had to be suppressed, the
Japanese names and characters were supplanted by Mexican
names and inscriptions. But in the film, they were still
* Grey. II : x:8.
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wearing Japanese uniforms . 1 At the last moment, it was
thus converted into an effort to inflame two neutrals.
The Chicago Tribune once cited an admission in the
Ncuesle Nachrichten of Leipzig, that Germany could look with
complacency upon strained relations between the United
States and Mexico, because, while digesting this hard nut,
Jonathan must cease to be John Bull’s willing servant.
The Tribune properly observed that
If the United States had to devote all its energies to an
enterprise such as the subjugation of Mexico, there would
be less American ammunition going abroad.*
The famous Henry Ford pamphlets on The War Record of
the Chicago T ribune reproduce this editorial side by side with
an editorial on the twenty-first of the same month, in which
the Tribune said that it preferred a campaign in Mexico to a
campaign in Europe.
If we win in a war against Mexico, we know what we get
out of it — a secure continent. And it is practically imposs-
ible for us to lose.
If we finally win in a war against Germany, what do we
win ? Blessed if we know. “ The overthrow of German
militarism ” will be the glib answer. Yes, and the substi-
tution of some other — Russia's, perhaps, or Japan’s.
However, though Fate offers us a golden apple in Mexico
and bitter fruit in Flanders, Mr. Wilson, being for " Humani-
ty " rather than for America, wishes us to taste the bitter
one. He probably will have his wish.
The outcome of such policy as that proposed by the
Tribune would have been so favourable to the Central
Powers, that statements of this kind were very properly
1 See the Sin. Doc. 62, (Brewing and Liquor Interests, etc) 1675
• April 4, 1916.
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146 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
circulated by the agents and friends of Germany in America.
This does not, of course, imply that those who made such
assertions were themselves pro-German.
When a belligerent country has a larger contingency of
its former nationals in a neutral land, it may, in an emer-
gency, seek to draw or drive these elements into active
work in its behalf. Von der Goltz, a captured German
agent, wrote a book on My Adventures as a German Secret
Agent in 191 7, which credits the German propagandists with
an exceedingly ingenious scheme.
It was planned so to discredit the German- Americans that
the hostility of their fellow -citizens would force them back
into the arms of the German Government.
I happen to know that during the first two years of the
war many of the stories about German attempts upon
Canada, about German-American complicity in various
plots, emanated from the offices of Captain von Papcn and
his military associates . . . Germany wanted to give the
world convincing proof that all peoples of German descent
were solidly supporting her. It was for this reason that
reports of impossible German activities were set -afloat
— rumours of Germans massing in the Maine woods, of
aeroplane flights over Canada. And since many anti-
German papers had been indiscreet enough to attack the
German-Americans as disloyal, the German agents used
and fomented these attacks for their own purposes.
But Germany overreached herself. Emboldened by the
apparent success of their schemes, her principal agents,
von Papen, Boy-Ed, and von Rintelen (who had begun his
work in January, 1915). became careless, so far as secrecy
was concerned, and so audacious in their plans that they
betrayed themselves, perhaps intentionally, as a final
demonstration of their power. The results you know.
In so far as the disclosure of their activities tended further
to implicate the German-Americans, they did harm. But
by these very disclosures the eyes of many German-
Americans were opened to the true nature of the influences
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to which they had been subjected, and through that fact
the worst element of the German propaganda in America
received its death blow. 1
The statement which von der Goltz made is not
corroborated by any other evidence, and the testimony of a
professional spy is always subject to the most justifiable
suspicion. There is some reason to believe that this may
have been fabricated for the purpose of instigating the
German- Americans against a German Government which had
so cynically attempted to betray them (to this purpose the
last paragraph quoted seems to be directed). But there is
no denying the fact that there are circumstances in which
just such strategy as that imputed by von der Goltz to his
superiors could be Successful.
The control of inter-Ally sentiment is partly a problem of
maintaining a reciprocal cordiality, and the problem of
stimulating friendly relations between a belligerent and a
neutral has its bivalent aspects. What is said about the
neutrals and about the war in a belligerent country tends to
be translated or read in a neutral country. Thus Italian
susceptibilities were wounded during the critical days of
1915 by the statement of a French public man that Italy
was waiting “ to fly to the succour of the victor." Bel-
ligerent opinion must be supervised and managed in the
interest of neutral friendship.
Ambassador W. H. Page notes that
The Cabinet has directed the Censor to suppress, as far
as he can with prudence, comment which is unfavourable
to the United States. He has taken this action because
1 Conden9*d from pages 223-233.
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148 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
the public feeling against the administration is constantly
increasing. 1
Bismarck flew into a rage when a communique was put
out by the German military authorities in 1871 saying that
some shells had struck the famous Luxembourg Gardens in
Paris. He demanded to have ill the subsequent com-
muniques submitted to him, so that the material which
might be turned against Germany abroad could be deleted.*
Bismarck put the damper on editorial criticism in Germany of
the purveying of coal to the French fleet by the British, on
the theory that such railing would merely handicap diplo-
matic arrangements. * His chief was a level-headed old
gentleman who felt the importance of neutral opinion, and
Bismarck often had his way, even against the military
people.*
Our discussion so far has had to do principally with the
themes which bear upon the preservation of friendship.
Let us now review in summary from some of the methods
which were employed by the chief competitors for the favour
of America. The German methods have become public
knowledge through the Senatorial inquiry conducted in
1918-1919, and writings of Ambassador Bemstorff and
others. The title of the hearings is itself a triumph of
1 Life and Letters, II : 51 (February 15, 1915).
• Busch, Bismarck, I : 341.
• Busch, Bismarck, I : 42,
• Kaiser Wilhelm I. made an interesting note on the margin of a document
dated May 16th, 1875; " Um glUckliche Kriege zu fuhren, muss deni
Angreifenden die Sympathie alleredelgesinnten Menschen u. Lander zur
Seite stehen, und dem, der ungerecht den Krieg zutragt, die offentliebe
S Limine den Stein werfen. Dies war das Geheimnis des Enthusiasmus in
Deutschland 1870 ! Wer ungerechtfertigt zu den Waffen greift, wird die
Aflenliche Stimmegegen sieh haben, er wird keinen Alliierten finden, k«ne
neuires bienveillants, ja iiberhaupt wohl keine Neutralen, wohl aber Gegner
finden,"
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insinuation. It was “ Brewing and Liquor Interests and
German Bolshevik Propaganda," and was reported in three
husky volumes. The hearings did not begin until Sep-
tember 27th, 1918, and did not figure heavily in the War
propaganda. A hearing which was conducted in February
and April of 1918, dealt with the National German-American
Alliance. 1 Three birds were killed at one stone by these
hearings : the brewers, the Germans, and the Bolsheviks.
The Anti-Saloon League, the Department of Justice, the
Military Intelligence and the Naval Intelligence were active
in pressing the investigations.
Dr. Demburg, former Secretary' of State for the Colonies,
was sent to this country at the outbreak of the War to
float a German loan. The American Government warned
against lending money to either side, and it was impossible
to produce satisfactory results. Dr. Dernburg was also an
agent for the German Red Cross and began to collect funds
for this work. He also undertook to explain the German
version of the War to the American public, and set up a
Press Bureau in New York. Opinions differ as to whether
he came over here to do this, or whether he found that it was
difficult to return to Germany and evolved this to keep him
occupied. He had the assistance at the New York Bureau
of M. B. Claussen of the Hamburg-Amerika line, and after
the entry of Japan into the War the interpreter of the
Consulate-General in Yokohama joined the staff. Daily
bulletins of the German Information Service were issued, and
1 The hearings were before the sub-committee of the Committee oa the
Judiciary. The most important report is the three-volume work known
as Senate Document 62, 65th Congress. 2nd Session, iqiq. “ And
Bolshevik ” propaganda does not appear in the title to volume i.
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then the activity of the bureau was extended to the pre-
paration of pamphlets. For these efforts the services of
William Bayard Hale were secured. War-pictures and
film-propaganda were later added. Dr. Mechlenburg and
Herr Plage were held up in America on their way from Japan
and placed their services at the disposal of Dr. Demburg.
Dr. Demburg had the assistance of a committee which he
selected, consisting of Albert, Gerhardt, Fuehr and a few
American journalists and business men. They conferred
once or twice a month on propaganda policy. Dr. Demburg
stayed in this country until after the Lusitania incident,
when he made a public speech at Cleveland, justifying the
sinking of the boat on the theory that it carried arms. Public
indignation ran so high that a sacrifice was demanded, and
Demburg was the sacrificial ram. He went home. Ambas-
sador Bernstorff tried thereafter to keep the Germans from
agitating too openly in the country, preferring to work
through American citizens.
The Germans had the warm co-operation of the German-
American Alliance, which was well organized in the German
strongholds over the nation — St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati,.
Milwaukee. There were numberless German social clubs
and societies. The Kriegsbund was composed of those who
had served in the German army. There were several
veterans’ posts of the War of 1870. The Geneva Society was
a peculiar organization of German waiters. The Turner
Societies and all sorts of benevolent organizations were
thriving in every German district.
The Lutheran Church was a strong asset of the Germans,
for there were 6,000 congregations in the United States,
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whose communicants numbered some three million. Often
their services were kept up in German, and many of their
preachers had received training in Germany.
The Germans appealed to all nationalities with a grievance
against the Allies. The American Truth Society was a
vehicle for stirring up the Irish. The Jews had an
ineradicable antipathy toward the Tsaristic system, and
many of them sided with the Germans. Their Press fre-
quently had such items as the following :
It is impossible to be a comrade of Nicholas and not
be a hooligan. In the days of Beaconsfield, when England
was far from Russia, no massacres of Jews were made, not
on the poor, and not on the rich. To-day, when England
is an ally of Nicholas, she must do as Nicholas does, she
must make massacres, she must preach against the Jews.
When the war broke out, I immediately enlisted (in the
French army), but I was astonished on my arrival at the
camp at Lyons to see that I. together with many other Jews,
was placed in a legion which was composed of criminals
only. From all sides wc were insulted. We were given
cold black coffee and dry bread, and when we protested we
were told that we were dirty Jews, and we came only to
eat and nothing else. I refused to cat and got sick. When
I applied to the sergeant to send me to the hospital, he
began to beat me, etc. 1
Concerning the efforts of the Germans to win the negroes, i
and to foment discord inside the country over the race
question, Captain Lester testified to the committee :
A separate department was maintained in the Albert
bureau for the handling of American race problems, the
principal among which was the negro question.
1 Clippings from Wahrheit (New York). Sen. Doc. 62. 1825. et seq.
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The bureau obtained through newspaper agencies and
exchanges and from these so-called clipping bureaux records
of every lynching in the United States, and every attack by
coloured men upon a white person, or every news item which
showed the alleged oppression of the coloured race.
These were formed into propaganda articles, and were
forwarded to the editors of established newspapers, that is,
white newspapers, and also to the editors of coloured news-
papers.
The field work was conducted by a man by the name of
Von Reiswitz, formerly a consul, I understand, at one time
at Chicago.
His headquarters, if you may say that he had any head-
quarters, was in and about New Orleans, and all of the
negro propaganda work was conducted from Mexico by
Von Eckhardt. I say all of it in the sense that the directing
head was in Mexico. The men used for the negro propa-
ganda work were Mexicans and half-breeds, and men that
were brought to Mexico City and instructed and sent
across the border ; and the wave of negro propaganda work
Went from the Mexican border east, and embraced the
States, principally, of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missis-
sippi, Alabama, Georgia ; and States such as North and
South Carolina and Tennessee were really on the outskirts
of the movement.
The propaganda was directed to stir up trouble con-
tinuously between the whites and the blacks of any nature
and description. That was the first item.
The attempt was also made to win the coloured race to
the cause of Germany by innumerable arguments. We
have information that the propaganda took this form :
That the negro leaders, who were subsidized or attempted
to be subsidized, in various local communities and by
letters — I do not mean the big leaders of the negro race, but
small men scattered here and there — told the negroes that
in Germany the blacks were equal to the whites ; that in
Europe they had no colour line. They exhibited state-
ments, presumed to be authentic, to this effect, and argued
with them that, if Germany won the war, the rights of the
coloured people in the South would be equal to those of the
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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whites. * That was the principal argument. They played
continuously upon lynchings. 1
The Germans sought to touch every foreign language
group which might be suborned by controlling the American
Association of Foreign Language Newspapers.
The German University League was started in 1915, to
unite all who had attended a German university. The
purpose was “ to co-operate with every effort, to strengthen
the regard for the Germans and for their aims and ideals and
to secure for them fair play and proper appreciation."
Among those who were officers or trustees are to be found
the names of von Klenze, William R. Shepherd (Columbia),
Carl L. Schurz, von Mach, and many other distinguished
academic and public men. Meetings were held and papers
read and distributed. The co-operation of visiting professors,
such as Moritz J. Bonn, was secured. This was a direct
channel of communication between the intellectuals of
Germany and America."
The Germans were active in trying to reach the pro-
fessional^ trained people in the country. Nagel's pamphlet
on American neutrality was circulated to 50,000 lawjxrs
through the American 'Truth Society."
The women were appealed to through the League of
American Women for Strict Neutrality, which was founded
in Baltimore. The wage-earners received special attention
through the Labour’s National Peace Council (1915). They
1 were often very close to the brewing interests, for the latter
\ were very much alarmed at the impending movement for
\ 1 Sen. Doc. 62, {Brewing and Liquor Interests, etc.) 1785.
v * For documents, see Sen. Doe. 62. 1372 etseq.
* Sen. Doc. 62, 1424.
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154 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Prohibition, and German propaganda agents sometimes took
advantage of the anxiety of the brewers to make propaganda
by offering to organize such a movement and turning it into
a pro-German drive.
All manner of appeals to the public at large were made
through all available channels. Books upon every phase
of the War were put out under the auspices of the Dernburg-
Albert Bureau, and the circulation of every book, beneficial
to the German cause, was facilitated. A short selection of
these books follows :
England or Germany, Frank Harris.
Hir.denburg s March into London, L. G. Redmond- Howard,
author of the Life of John Redmond.
Peace and America, Hugo Mlinsterberg, Harvard University.
America's Relations to the Great War, John W. Burgess,
Columbia University.
The Making of Modern Germany, Ferdinand Schcvill, The
University of Chicago.
England , Eduard Meyer, The University of Berlin.
Belgium and Germany, A Dutch View, Dr. J. H. Labberton.
Justice in War Time, Bertrand Russell.
Behind the Scenes of Warring Germany, Edward Lyell Fox. 1
The New York Mail was purchased for the sake of reaching
a metropolitan audience, and supplying a newspaper which
could be quoted. Cartoons, pamphlets and photographs
without number were employed, and distributed through
steamship company offices. 1
Moving pictures were sent to America in which German
soldiers were shown busily feeding Belgian and French
1 A fuller list is given in Sen Doc. 62. 1410 tt seq.
* Additional information about the German system appears in Lewis
Melville. “German Propaganda Societies," Quarterly Review. 230 (1918):
70-88.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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children. There were such captions as “ Barbs feeding the
hungry/’ " Do Barbarians look like this ? ”
The head of the British propaganda in America has con-
veniently summarized his methods . 1
Practically since the day war broke out between England
and the Central Powers I became responsible for American
publicity. 1 need hardly say that the scope of my depart-
ment was very extensive, and its activities widely ranged.
Among the activities was a weekly report to the British
Cabinet on the state of American opinion, and constant touch
with the permanent correspondents of American news-
papers in England. I also frequently arranged for import-
ant public men in England to act for us by interviews in
American newspapers ; • and among these distinguished
people were Mr. Lloyd George (the present Prime Minister),
Viscount Grey, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Bonar Law, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Sir Edward Carson, Lord Robert Cecil,
Mr. Walter Kunciman (the Lord Chancellor), Mr. Austen
Chamberlain, Lord Cromer, Will Crooks, Lord Curzon,
Lord Gladstone, Lord Haldane. Mr. Henry James,
Mr. John Redmond. Mr. Selfridge. Mr. Zangwill, Mrs.
Humphrey Ward, and fully a! hundred others.
Among other things we supplied three hundred and
sixty newspapers in the smaller states of the United States
with an English newspaper, which gives weekly reviews and
comment on the affairs of the war. We established con-
nection with the man in the street through cinema pictures
of the Army and Navy, as well as through interviews,
articles, pamphlets, etc. ; and by letters in repty to indi-
vidual American critics, which were printed in the chief
newspaper of the State in which they lived, and were copied
in newspapers of other and neighbouring States. We
advertised and stimulated many people to write articles.
We utilised the friendly services and assistance of con-
fidential friends ; we had reports from important Americans
constantly, and established association by personal corres-
pondence with influential and eminent people of every
1 Sir Gilbert Parker, "The United States and the War." Harper's
Magazine, 136 (19x8) ; 3x1-531. Extract.
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profession in the United States, beginning with the univer-
sity and college presidents, professors, and scientific men,
and running through all the ranges of population. We
asked our friends and correspondents to arrange for speeches,
debates and lectures by American citizens, but we did not
encourage Britishers to go to America and preach the
doctrine of entrance into the war. Besides an immense
private correspondence with individuals, we had our
documents and literature sent to great numbers of public
libraries, Y.M.C.A. societies, universities, colleges, historical
societies, clubs and newspapers.
It is hardly necessary to say that the work was one of
extreme difficulty and delicacy, but I was fortunate in
having a wide acquaintance in the United States, and in
knowing that a great many people had read my books and
were not prejudiced against me. . . .
... it should be remembered that the Society of
Pilgrims, whose work of international unity cannot be over-
estimated, has played a part in promoting understanding
between the two peoples, and the establishment of the
American Officers' Club in Lord Leconfield’s house in
London, with H.R.H. the Duke of Cohnaught as President,
has done, and is doing, immense good. It should also be
remembered that it was the Pilgrims’ Society, under the
fine chairmanship of Mr. Harry Brittain, which took charge
of the Hun. James M. Beck when he visited England in
1916, and gave him so good a chance to do great work for
the cause of unity between the two nations.- I am glad and
proud to think that I had something to do with these
arrangements, which resulted in the Pilgrims taking Mr.
Beck into their charge. 1
The chief emphasis in Sir Gilbert Parker’s succinct account
of his own methods is upon the use of persons as channels of
influence. Influence spread from business man to business
1 The British have not publicly estimated the amount of money which
they spent on American as distinguished from other types of propaganda.
They spent one hundred and fifty thousand dollars (£31,360 4s.) in the last
four months of the War to break the German moral and to accomplish other
propaganda objects.
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man, from journalist to journalist, from professor to pro-
fessor, from worker to worker. Behind the scenes, and behind
the news and pictures and speeches, there flows a mighty
stream of personal influencing. The War was more debated
in private than in public. The doubters were won by friend-
ship or flattery, logic or shame, to fuse their enthusiasm in
the rising wave of Allied sentiment. A side-light on the
method is contained in a letter from Sir Edward Grey to
Theodore Roosevelt, dated September ioth, 1914 :
My dear Roosevelt, — J. M. Barrie and A. E. W. Mason,
some of whose books you have no doubt read, are going to
the U.S. Their object is, as I understand, not to make
speeches or give lectures, but to meet people, particularly
those connected with Universities, and explain the British
case as regards this war and our view of the issues involved . 1
When a lance was broken in public for the British cause,
it was done by an American and not by a foreigner. There
were no obnoxiously evident Britishers as there were Dem-
burgs in America. It was the social lobbj', the personal
conversation, and the casual brush which forged the strongest
chain between America and Britain. All countries found
that an effective carrier of propaganda for their cause in
America was the titled foreigner who said nothing whatever
for the public prints, but who talked privately and casually
of the War. The sheer radiation of aristocratic distinction
was enough to warm the cockles of many a staunch
Republican heart, and to evoke enthusiasm for the country
which could produce such dignity, elegance and affability.
The wife of an important newspaper proprietor was hostess
1 Grey, Txuenty-Five Years, II : 143.
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to a Count ; the wife of a Senator evened the social score by
countering with a Duke. A Marquis, Earl or Baron was
dealt hither and thither in this diverting social game. All
this was a standing joke among sophisticated Europeans,
who subtly played upon the ambitions of numerous hostesses
in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington and
Chicago.
The most important personality in propaganda among
neutrals or allies usually is the official representative . at
the capital. What type of man should he be and what
technique should he exploit ? No more brilliant success has
ever been scored than that of Benjamin Franklin at Paris
during the War of Independence. A Frenchman, M. Francis
P. Rcnaut, describes him in these words :
(Franklin) arrived preceded by a certain reputation ;
he was able not only to save his admirers from disillusion,
but to kindle their enthusiasm. For some he was scientist
who had captured the lightning, for others the genial
philosopher, for others the enemy of tyranny and the ardent
defender of public liberty ; for all, he was the simple man of
nature, the patriarch, the father of a family who unostenta-
tiously exemplified the common virtues. And in a time
when the words of Rousseau were lodged in every cultivated
mind, who could fail to be moved by the spectacle of a
venerable old gentleman coming to defend his country,
supported on the arm of one of his grandchildren (William
Temple Franklin). The politician scarcely appeared in
this life, of which the smallest details captivated the
Parisians ; the residence at Passy with its easy access, the
visits to Court without ceremony, the philosophical
conversations, the relations with Voltaire and the
physiocrats. 1
1 La politique dc propaganda des Amiricains durani la Guerre d’lndipen
dance. 1 : 52 .
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The key to Franklin was expressed by implication in the
last sentence : he was a non-political personality, and the
lustre of his person spread to all his affiliations.
An example of a dubious selection is that of the Hon.
Elihu Root as head of the American Mission to Russia.
There was no question about his technical eminence as a
student and administrator of international affairs, but the
situation was such that he was open to attack in revolutionary
Russia. As Colonel Robins testified :
You may know that he had attacked at one time in this
country a very important public person, and you may know
that, as a result of that attack, editorials, the most brilliant
possible of their kind, had been published for successive
weeks, accompanied by cartoons, speaking of Mr. Root as
the jackal of privilege, as the watchdog of Wall Street, and
all that sort of thing. They had been run in the public
Press. Probably the German agents in America, immedi-
ately upon his appointment, gathered these up and sent
them over, and they appeared in pamphlets in Russia,
translated into Russian, with the cartoons and the words
changed to Russian synonyms, so that even friendly papers
said, “ How is it possible that the great democratic President
should send over to Russia to help make the world safe for
democracy — to revolutionary Russia — the man who has
spent most of his time, according to what we hear, in trying
to make America safe for plutocracy ?
If this general analysis of the technique of preserving
friendship is correct, it goes to show that the chief theme of
inter-allied propaganda is strenuous exertion in the common
cause, and that every supporting thesis of propaganda should
be sustained and reinforced. The handling of the neutral
boils down to the problem of leading the neutral to identify
1 Sen. Doc. 62, [Brewing and Liquor Interests, etc) 3 : 819 .
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his own interests with your own in defeating the energy...
Aside from general representations of the enemy as
threatening, obstructive, and despicable, and of one’s own
nation as protective, helpful and upright, there must be
some confidence in ultimate success. The most astute means
of drawing in neutral sympathy is to draw the neutral into
overt co-operation in some form. When all else fails, an
appeal to pacifism and an effort to instigate trouble with
another neutral may avoid active hostility. Among all the
means to be exploited, the use of personal influencing is
peculiarly important, as is the practice that in general
neutrals should be addressed by neutrals.
. Original from
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CHAPTER VII
DEMORALIZING THE ENEMY
It is possible to employ propaganda as a weapon of direct
attack against the moraKof the enemy by seeking to break
up oi* divert the hatred of the enemy from a belligerent.
To a certain degree this can be accomplished by a cam-
paign of simple counter-stimulation. The Gazette des
A rdennes was published by the Germans for the consumption
of the Frenchman who lived within. -the occupied area, and
the various themes capable of employment in demoralizing
the enemy were used at one time or another within its
columns. The Gazette was exhaustively examined by Pro-
fessor Marchand during the War for the purpose of
establishing, if possible, a direct parallel between its attitudes
and those of the Bonnet Rouge of Paris. His report, which
was part of the evidence against the latter journal in the
famous trial of 1917, has since been published as L' offensive
des A demands , en France, pendant la guerre. It is made up
of assorted extracts from the two papers in question, and
represents by far the best systematic study of one phase of
War propaganda yet made. The references in this section
will be to this compilation, supplemented by other material.
In most cases the citations have been checked against the
original.
The Gazette denied outright that Germany had ever
161
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plotted to attack France, and deplored the propaganda of
misrepresentation against Germany. M. Leon Daudet and
M. Cleinenceau have the " spionnitis,” when they imagine
that Germany had sown France with a vast army of secret
agents before or since the War . 1
The Gazette defended its Kaiser and military men from the
alleged calumny of the Allies. William the Second has
always been recognized as a powerful influence for peace.
It was he who saved Europe from war over Morocco. His
pacific spirit has repeatedly been acknowledged by such men
as J. Holland Rose, the eminent English historian, by Marcel
Sembat, the Frenchman of letters and Socialist -patriot, and
by right-thinking people everywhere. He is conscientious,
peace-loving, kindly, gentle in his family relations, able in
his leadership, and altogether generous in his impulses . 1
All the stories about German barbarities are poisonous lies.
The German soldiers in the army of occupation in northern
France are kind to children. A picture in the Gazette for
December ist, 1915. shows a German soldier in the act of
feeding a little French child who is perched affectionately
on his knee. s The children cherish fond memories of “ l'oncle
Fritz .” 1 Letters from Frenchmen in the occupied territory
and from French prisoners in the hands of the Germans, were
published to prove the kindly and considerate character of
the German forces of occupation . 6 The irrepressible German
1 Gazelle, July z, 1917, citing an item from the Frankfurter Zeitung
Marchand. p. 97.
8 Gazelle, 17 November, 1917. Marchand, p. 143.
8 Reproduced opposite page 145 in Hansi and Tonnelet, A Travers les
Lignes Ennemies.
4 Gazelle, 13 August, 1916. Marchand, p. 0. 5.
6 Gazelle, Same.
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love of music, religion and morality has manifested itself
wherever German soldiers are found.
The tales of wholesale atrocity and wilful destruction are
malicious generalizations from a few regrettable individual
instances, which happen in every army, but less often in the
disciplined German army than elsewhere. The necessities
of war, as everyone knows, may require acts which are not
essential in the quiet times of peace, but it is absurd to
distort the facts into a wholesale denunciation of an entire
nation . 1 Many of the churches which the Germans are
supposed to have destroyed were never destroyed, and many
of them were illegitimately used by the enemy.
The examples which have been cited so far illustrate
defence by denial. Another form of defence, that of admis-
• **
sion accompanied by justification, is illustrated by the
handling of the U-Boat question. The Gazette explained
over and over again that the submarine was nothing more nor
less than a reply to the infamous and illegal British blockade.
While no form of stimulation should be neglected, and the
application of counter-suggestion has a certain effect, its
efficacy is by no means comparable to the influence of a
skilful propaganda of diversion. To undermine the active
hatred of the enemy for its present antagonist, his anger
must be distracted to a new and independent object, beside
which his present antagonist ceases to matter. This is a
very difficult operation, and it is always advisable to carry
through a work of preparation for the purpose of under-
mining some of the varieties of resistance which hamper the
success of such a manoeuvre.
1 Gazette . y June, 1916. Marchand, p. 190.
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Patriotism is a powerful prop to belligerent ardour, and
anti-patriotic propaganda has some chance to succeed with
those elements in the nation who begin to recover their
peace time ideology after the war has worn on awhile. The
Gazette published certain items which deplored the tendency
of patriotism to lead a country into needless slaughter. 1
Patriotism which preaches hate is immoral, and the poison-
ing of men's minds is nothing less than criminal. • The war
spirit should be avoided, since there is no doubt of its
irreligious and unethical character. 3
Another sustaining force against which sapping operations
must be directed is the confidence of the people in their
government s honesty. If a suspicion can be engendered
against the propaganda of the government and the war
party, a potent weapon of disintegration is created. The
Germans complained that they were the victims of
systematic vilification by ignorant pedagogues, irresponsible
politicians, and lying newsmongers.
But the keynote in the preliminary spade work is the
unceasing refrain : Your cause is hopeless. Your blood is
spilt in vain. Now the heads of the French propaganda
very properly criticised the early English propaganda for
boasting of the size of the Allied armies during the early
stages of the War, when the Germans occupied Belgium and
nonhem France. It was only when things settled down to
a stalemate or worse, and when disappointment was general,
that such propaganda became effective. When the British
took the offensive in 1918, in a military sense, they simul-
1 23 September, 1916. Marchand, p. 85.
1 Gazette. 9 January. 1916. Marchand. p. 15.
* Gazette, 3 July, 1917. Marchand, p. 27.
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tancously sowed the German trenches with maps upon which
their gains were plainly marked. They recalled the false
hopes which the German leaders had held out to the people
and the army. They circulated an alleged statement in a
German newspaper which lamented that
A few weeks ago it appeared as if our armies were very
near their goal, the defeat of the enemy force, and peace.
But what a change !
Forebodings were disseminated. A card was spread over
the German trenches with the legend :
To-day wc arc in retreat. Next year we shall be
destroyed.
When the German generals gave public evidence of their
alarm at the incursions of Allied propaganda in 1918, the
Allied pamphleteers interpreted this to the Germans as a
sign that their leaders wanted to keep the truth from them.
A rumour that the German Government was at last disposed
to make peace was circulated as another evidence of weak-
ness.
The Americans, who entered the field of direct propaganda
against Germany, and especially the German army, spent
most of their energy advertising the news of America's
strength. Little leaflets with a row of soldiers, whose size
varied with the monthly increase in the number of American
soldiers, were distributed over the German lines. 1,900,000
Americans are now in France, said the card, and more than
ten times as many stand ready in America. The extent of
German casualties and tonnage losses was emphasized. That
they were short of food and raw materials was insinuated by
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such means as circulating the report that another smuggler
had been arrested in a German city.
Tracts with such questions as these were distributed far
and wide :
Will you ever again be as strong as you were in July.
igi8 ?
Will your opponents grow daily stronger or weaker ?
Have your grievous losses suffered in 1918 brought you
the victorious peace which your leaders promised you ?
Have you still a final hope of victory ?
Do you want to give up your life in a hopeless cause ?*
, Another theme of first-rate importance when it is in
juxtaposition to the foregoing is the privations to which the
soldier and his family at home are subjected. Stories of
want and misery at home were featured in a special French
propaganda sheet, which was prepared for use among German
soldiers, the Brief e aus Deutschland. In the brilliant attack
upon Italian moral, which preceded the disaster of Caporetto
in 1917, the Italian soldiers were sent appeals, ostensibly
from home, beseeching them to lay down their arms and
return to their families.
The joys of home were subtly suggested by the French
i
editors of Die Feldpost (another sheet for the German
troops). They celebrated the Christmas season of 1915 by
recalling all the simple pleasures of Christmas at home with
the family in peace. 1 The amusements of civilian life were
featured in the propaganda literature for the sake of inten-
sifying war weariness.
1 Hcber Blankenhom describes the American campaign in My Advtn-
tures in Propaganda.
1 Hansi and Tonnelet. Figure 4, opposite p. 24.
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Another means of stressing want and privation is to
circulate, as the Americans did, someihing which suggests
the relative affluence and luxury of the enemy. A card,
which was an exact reproduction of the official German
field postal card, said :
Write the address of your family upon this card, and if
you are captured by the Americans, give it to the first
officer who questions you. He will make it his business to
forward it in order that your family may be reassured
concerning your situation.
(On the reverse) :
Do not worry about me. The war is over for me. I have
good food. The American Army gives its prisoners the
same food as its own soldiers : Beef, white bread, potatoes,
beans, prunes, coffee, butter, tobacco, etc . 1
This was no new wrinkle in propaganda technique, for it is
recorded that handbills were circulated among the British
troops on Bunker Hill, offering them seven dollars a month,
fresh provisions in plenty, health, freedom, ease, affluence,
and a good farm, should they desert and join the American
Army.*
All the preparatory or auxiliary themes outlined so far
are supposed to facilitate the task of substituting new’ hates
for old. The next step is to concentrate upon the particular
object of animosity about which it is hoped to polarize the
sentiment of the enemy. One of the possible alternatives t
i
is to transfer suspicion and hatred to an ally.
The German propaganda did what it could to disinter the
ancient animosity of the French for the English, France,
1 Reproduced in Blankenhorn. p. 78.
* C. K. Bolton, The Private Soldier under Washington, p. 90. Cited by
Salmon, The Newspaper and the Historian, 340.
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they said, is the cat’s-paw of the English. The English have
been exceedingly backward in their war preparations, as
Winston Churchill has recently acknowledged . 1 Their game
is to let France bleed for them. Indeed, they are taking
pains to establish themselves in permanent buildings at
Calais, and any student of history knows how long it took
to dislodge England the last time she had her clutches on
Calais.
The truth, declared the Germans, is that, far from
threatening you, we are willing to join you in a common
crusade against England, who has conspired with some of
your meanest politicians to use your blood to crush our
trade competition. We will gladly free you from the
machinations of England, and help you to expand your
colonial domain at the British expense. Between us we
can dominate Europe, and to dominate Europe is to
dominate the world. At the same time, we can emancipate
you from Russia, whose Tsar is using France to enable him to
grab Constantinople. 1
The Allies, in their turn, strained every muscle to drive a
wedge between Austria-Hungary and Germany. Rumours
that the Dual Monarchy was negotiating a separate peace,
were circulated among the German soldiers on the Western
Front, for the purpose of stirring up hatred against Austria,
and of demonstrating the hopelessness of the cause for which
they had suffered so much. The report that the Austrians
and Hungarians had plenty of food provoked considerable
animosity in Germany, where the food restrictions were
1 Gazette , 7 September. 1916. Marchand, p. 49-
* Gazette. 26 April,* 1917. Marchand, p 47.
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severe. The Austrians, for their part, were taunted as the
slaves of Prussia, and wheedled by the possibility of
territorial compensations at the expense of Germany, should
they change sides.
An ally is not the only possible object of diversion. The
government and the governing caste may serve just as well.
If the ruling person, clique or class can be made sufficiently
obnoxious. Revolution comes, and in Revolution there is
little remaining capacity for active hatred of the external
enemy.
During the last war every belligerent took a hand in the
perilous business of fomenting dissension and revolution
abroad, reckless of the possible repercussions of a successful
revolt. There is reason to believe that, as early as 1915, the
Germans were attempting to foster the collapse of Russia, by
placing revolutionary reading matter in the hands of those
Russian prisoners who might eventually return to Russia
through exchange or release. 1 The famous episode of the
sealed car, which contained Lenin and forty men, happened
in 1917.
The Allies set about quite consciously to uproot the
Kaiser and the Imperial system in Germany. One of the
leaflets which the French scattered over Germany contained
a picture of the Kaiser and his husky sons, unscathed by
war ; on the opposite side stood many rows of wooden
crosses, to mark the final resting places of his loyal German
subjects." Another leaflet showed the Kaiser and his general
* A Russian who was permitted to visit some of these prison camps
through the Red Cross arrangements made this the subject of a complaint.
• Reproduced in Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 136.
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staff, sitting about a table, conversing genially and
drinking beer ; the reverse pictures an explosion in a
front-line trench, where many bodies are being ripped to
pieces. 1
German Republicans who lived abroad were drafted or
volunteered to discuss the responsibility of the Kaiser for
the War. After the collapse of the great offensive in the
spring of 1918 the Wilsonian propaganda in Germany
reached its apex. His speeches were strewn far and wide,
and they were successful in creating the impression that a
Republican Germany would receive a soft peace from the
western democracies. Care was taken to print all the
passages of Wilson’s speeches which had been suppressed in
Germany in red ink.*
The British tried to suggest the imminence of revolutionary
disturbances in Germany by means of news items, which
told about secret precautions recently taken in Berlin, where
a G.H.Q. order had just directed certain measures to be
taken for the suppression of strikes. Every Socialist
meeting which was suppressed received considerable
publicity on the Western Front. The following item is a
particularly subtle effort to carry the idea of revolution.
It is in the form of a despatch from Stockholm :
The German Minister in Stockholm has requested the
Swedish Foreign Office to seize the copy of the New York
Herald Magazine of the War of the 14th of July because it
publishes on the front page a photograph of the German
Emperor, underneath which are the words : — " What shall
we do with the Kaiser after the War ? " The Minister of
1 Reproduced in Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 160.
* See Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 152.
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Justice is said to have ordered the copies in question to be
seized.'
Although the Germans were finally bested in the game,
they tried strenuously to demoralize the Allies through
Revolution. Through the Gazette and every other channel
open to them they endeavoured to hang the responsibility
of the War upon Poincar6 and his clique. This was the
group, they said, whose insane lust for revenge led them to
carry on illicit negotiations with military and diplomatic
circles in Belgium, to finance strategic railways in Russia,
when they ought to have been providing for social welfare at
home, to refuse to thwart the propaganda for Pan-Slavism,
and to violate Belgian neutrality before Germany entered
the War.
The Germans came into possession of a crushing reply to
the professions of international idealism with which the
Allies filled the air. They gave as much publicity as their
limited resources would permit to the secret treaties which
the Allied powers had made. The idealistic Allies had
carved up the world among themselves. Russia was
promised Constantinople. Great Britain got the neutral
zone north of its sphere of influence in Persia. The Italians
got the Trentino and Trieste, plus the Slavic territories of
Gorizi, Gradisca, Istria, Dalmatia and Valona. They were
promised 200,000 Germans who lived in the Brenner Pass
region and who had been Austrian subjects since the four-
teenth century. The important ports of the Adriatic (except
Fiumc) fell into their hands outright, or were neutralized.
1 This and similar examples are given in Campbell. Secrets of Crewe
House.
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They secured the Greek Dodekanese Islands, some provinces
in Asia Minor, and promises of colonies in Africa. Rumania
was given territories inhabited by Serbs, Hungarians,
•
Ruthenians and other Slavic nationalities. France gave
Russia a free hand in Poland in return for a free hand on the
western front in reference to Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar, and
the left bank of the Rhine. Besides all this, the Turkish
Empire and the colonies of Germany were sliced up and
parcelled out.
The revelation of these treaties not only created inter-
Allied troubles, because the secret treaties revealed that the
Allies had made contradictory promises to some of the weaker
powers, but it had an immediate influence on the moral of
Labour. The revelation of Allied duplicity produced the
repercussions which have been referred to before. 1
The Germans carried their attack upon national unity
very far. They sought to arouse the wives at home by
calling attention to the alarming extent to which prostitution
was practised at the front. Dr. Graux records that, as early
as July 1915. anonymous pamphlets were distributed in
France, elaborating this theme.*
No effort was spared to arouse the soldiers at the front
against the supposed excesses of politicians, profiteers and
officers behind the lines. The Gazette for November 5th,
I9r6, alluded to the wives of soldiers left at home who find
duty too burdensome to bear. The French Government
was known to be responsible for importing the black
inhabitants of Morocco into the War, and the Gazette took
1 Page 62.
* Graux, Lcs Fausses Nouvellcs, II: 151.
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occasion to publish a letter which contained the remark
that
Those dirty Moroccans have left offsprings right and
left, like the Annamite . 4
The French reproduced and circulated a cartoon from
Simplicissimus'; in which a German schoolmaster asked an
emaciated pupil why anyone is called a poor sinner, who is
condemned to severe punishment. The reply was :
“ Because a rich sinner is never punished severely. ”*
The authorities encouraged fraternization between the
Austrian and the Italian troops before the Caporetto affair,
carefully using for that purpose some Austrian Communists,
who had been infected by Communism or Socialism on the
Russian front. Sometimes German pacifists were permitted
to travel abroad, although the most rigorous limitations
were placed on their agitation at home.
The Germans appealed to every possible cleavage in the !;
French nation, seeking to instigate party versus party, *
farmers versus urbanites, provincials versus Parisians,
workers versus employers, the army versus the nation, the
army versus the government, and the legislature versus the
executive . 3
We have spoken of anti -Al ly and anti-Government pro-
paganda, but some attention must be given to a third
important possibility, anti-State propaganda. The late
War proved how effective the instigation of secession may be, ( J
when the belligerent is a heterogeneous State. The Allies
* Gazette, April 29, 1917. * See Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 28.
• Marcliaml, Section II.
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began to talk about self-determination early in the War-
The Tsar announced that he proposed to grant autonomy to
a united Poland on the 16th of August, 1914. By the spring
of 1916 the astronomer-aviator, Stefanik, offered to drop
Czech proclamations by Masaryk over the lines of the
Austrian Army, opposite the Italians. 1
The Russians had dropped some gold coins with the
Czechish national castle minted on one side inside the lines
by aeroplane, but it was not until after the Declaration of
Corfu in July, 1917, that the propaganda offensive against
the Dual Monarchy began to inflict its greatest damage.
According to this declaration, Pashitch and Trumbitch,
" the authorized representatives of the Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes," recognized the desire of our people “ to constitute
itself in an independent national state " ; adopted as its
name “ the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes " ;
provided for the unification of its flag and Crown, but also
for the free use of special Serb, Croat and Slovene flags and
emblems ; for the freedom of the Orthodox, Roman Catholic
and Mussulman creed ; declared that the Adriatic must be
" a free and open sea," and that " the Kingdom will include
all territory compactly inhabited by our people and cannot
be mutilated without attaint to the vital interests of the
community."
The policy of partitioning Austria-Hungary was opposed,
even at this comparatively late date, by numerous elements
among the Allies. The New Europe, which was launched in
October 19th, 1916, by Seton-Watson, Masaryk, Steed and
certain others, tried to overcome the reluctance of the
1 Steed. Through Thirty Years. II : 102.
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British Government to come out boldly for the policy of
partition. The Allied governments were embarrassed by the
deal into which they had entered to bring Italy into the
War in 1915, at which time the aspirations of the Southern
Slavs were not definitely formulated. The Italians had been
offered guarantees which were utterly incompatible with the
unity of the Southern Slavs, and the Italians were disposed
to hang fast to the advantages of the treaties. They pre-
ferred annexations to the problematical friendship of an
aggrandized Serbia, and they feared that a dismembered
Austria would join Germany. Wickham Steed, of the London
Times, an active member of the pro-Serbian propaganda
group, credits the Jewish financial houses with wishing to
maintain the German-Jewish financial system, which had
formed the economic framework of Pan-Germanism, and
with wishing to strengthen every element of opposition to
the break-up of Austria-Hungary. The Roman Catholic
hierarchy was likewise against the total submergence of the
largest remaining Roman policy in Europe. British society
cherished a soft spot for the Austrians because their homes
were so well kept, their shooting so good, and their urbanity
so unruffled. 1
Indeed, it was not until after the disaster of Caporetto in
October, 1917, that the Slavs and the Italians were able
to agree, and to enable the Allied propaganda to assume its
final proportions. Even then, it was not until the “ Pact
of Rome ” of March, 1918, that the way was entirely cleared
for one of the greatest propaganda feats of the War, the
Congress of Oppressed Hapsburg Nationalities, which met at
1 Steed, II : 129.
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176 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Rome in April. On October 26th, 1918, there was a con-
vention in Philadelphia of twelve nationalities, who were
determined upon securing liberty from their former rulers.
The presiding officer was Professor Masaryk, who was the
president of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, which had
been recognized by the Allied governments. Most of the
Press spoke of the gathering in Independence Hall as a
Czecho-Slovak Convention because of Masaryk's prominence
and the tremendous impression which had been made upon
the public mind by the Czecho-Slovak Legion in Russia, and
the Division of Czecho-Slovak troops in France. All the
delegates to the Convention solemnly signed a Declaration
of Independence, and the event was widely heralded in
America and Europe. 1
Another brilliant stroke on the part of Allied propaganda
was the encouragement of Zionism. In November, 1917,
Mr. Balfour, then Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, com-
mitted the British government to the establishment of a
Jewish National Home in Palestine. This gave the material
for an able appeal to the Jews in German}' and, incidentally,
increased the interest of American Jewry in the War.
General Ludendorff regarded the Balfour Declaration as the
cleverest thing done by the Allies in the nature of war
propaganda, and lamented the fact that Germany had not
thought of it first.
The efforts made by the Central Powers to instigate
secession fell flat. As early as the spring of 1915 the
Austrians tried to dissolve Russia. The French Ambassador
1 For an account of the proceedings, sec the agitation journals. The
Cxecho-Slovak Review for November, 1918. summarizes it briefly.
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was told by Goremykin, President of the Council, on the
ioth of April, 1915. that
Austria is making great efforts to create a national move-
ment among the Ukrainians. Surely you know that there
is a society for the Liberation of the Ukraine in Vienna ?
It publishes pamphlets and maps in Switzerland. I get
them, and they certainly reveal very intense propaganda
activity . 1
Germany tried to stir up the Irish against the English
and to precipitate trouble in Northern Africa, Egypt and
India. They tried to split Belgium by encouraging the
“ Walloon movement," but to little avail.
Several movements which were, in effect, a reductio ad
absurdum of the principle of self-determination were begun
during the War. One of them grew in the fertile brain of a
member of the Austrian Press service. He chanced to be in
occupied Italian territory and overheard a conversation
which he could not quite make out. He discovered that
it was a local speech known as Friul, spoken in a few villages
in Udine Province. He wrote an article demanding self-
determination for the users of Friul, and precipitated quite
an angry Press campaign in Italy.
A large element in propaganda against the enemy is the)
invention of ways and means for the transmission of sug-\
gestions to the enemy. It is proposed to deal with some '
of the more specialized appliances which were used for this
purpose in the last War rather than to touch upon them in
the section which is devoted to the general consideration of
tactical matters.
1 PaUeologue, An Ambassador's Memoirs. I : 327
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178 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Efforts were first made by the belligerents to penetrate
behind the lines of their opponents by means of insertions
in the neutral Press. Newspapers were purchased in
Switzerland and other neutral countries for this purpose.
Almost simultaneously the belligerents began to invent
ways and means of direct transmission.
The French began to publish a regular periodical in
October, 1915, for dissemination among the soldiers of their
opponents. The periodical was variously known as Die
Feldpost, Kriegsbldtter fiir das dcutsche Volk , and Das freie
deutsche Wort. Books and occasional pamphlets were
copiously employed. A tiny edition of J' accuse was sent
far and wide, for the purpose of preaching German respon-
sibility for the War. By the same method various books
were published from the pens of Dr. Herman Femau, Dr.
Muehlen, Prince Lichnowsky and others. Several fervent
brochures, prepared by Dr. Hermann Rosemeier, who until
liis flight in September, 1914, had edited the Morgenpost of
Berlin, were distributed. 1
Die Kriegsfackel was put out occasionally for the sole
purpose of discussing the question of war guilt.* Brief e aus
Deutschland and Griisse an die Heimat were also published
irregularly. The former was devoted to letters and news
items upon internal conditions in Germany, and the latter
was made up of letters from German prisoners who testified
about their excellent treatment in France. The French
forged a number of the Strassburger Post, a famous organ of
1 Die Vorgeschichte des Krieges; Deutsches Volh, wach ' auf / See Hansi
and Tonnelet, opposite p. 56.
* See Hansi and Tonnelet. opposite p. 38.
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Germanization, on the 29th of August, 1916, and on the
16th October, 1917. This was principally intended to
encourage the pro-French elements inside Alsace and Lor-
raine, and was full of sparkling satire upon German adminis-
tration. The famous yarn about the British intention to
occupy Calais was dealt with as follows :
We are able to confirm this almost incredible news (that
the French have leased Calais to the English for 99 years).
Our correspondent has interviewed a French officer of high
rank (adjutant) in Switzerland, originally from the vicinity
of Beaucaire, who, in tears, and with every mark of dejec-
tion, confessed that he had himself seen the city of Calais
and the English government conclude the contract. The
rental was fixed at 255,000 pounds sterling per month ; it
is payable in advance on the first of each month. Upon
receiving this amount, the Mayor of Calais divides it among
the inhabitants of the city. All expenses for light and
street cleaning, together with an obligation to sprinkle sand
on the sidewalks in case of a freeze are assumed by the
renter ; the owner pays for repairs. Either party may
terminate the contract at will upon nine months’ notice. —
Behold the depths to which France has fallen in humiliating
herself before the perfidious Albion ! If the citizens of
Calais imagine that the intrepid German Michel intends
to deliver them from the clutches of the English, that
nation of shopkeepers, they are deluding themselves. . . .
Wc have already tried it once, and we will most assuredly
not undertake it again. 1
The French also forged a number of the Frankfurter
Zeitung in July, 1917. They copied and parodied the leaflets
which were used for war loan propaganda in Germany.
Republican propaganda which was written by Siegfried
Balder and a troupe of others was sent over the lines.
1 Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 60.
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180 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Special pamphlets were devoted to justifying the French
claim to Alsace and Lorraine.
In addition to these efforts, the French published La Voix
du Pays for distribution among the occupants of the invaded
territories and of Alsace and Lorraine. Special appeals
were addressed to the Bavarians in the hope of stirring up
the South against the North. The French tried to send as
much of their propaganda as possible through the Swiss
postal service into Germany. They used a Swiss publishing
house to prepare material which they smuggled over the
border. One clever agent sold preserves to Germany and
stuffed the cartons with Allied propaganda stuff.
In 1916 the British War Office 1 created a branch of the
Directorate of Military Intelligence known as M.I.7.b., the
new staff establishing Le Courrier de l’ Air for the purpose
of reassuring the inhabitants of the invaded territory that
the cause was not lost. Copies of the paper even reached
the interior of Germany, where they aroused the fury of the
German authorities. This paper was published uninter-
ruptedly from April 6th, 1917, until January 25th, 1918- Its
publication was suspended for a time, as a result of an order
issued by the German military command to try the occupants
of any aeroplane which carried “ seditious literature ” by
court-martial, and to inflict severe penalties upon them.
This threat was followed by an example of its execution, and
the Courrier was suspended until a new mode of dissemination
could be perfected. Publication was resumed March 7th,
1918.
1 Major C. J. C. Street. *' Propaganda Behind the Lines.” Cornhill Maga-
tine, 3rd Series, 47 (1919) : 488-499.
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181
The development of better methods of distribution is
traced by Major Street in these pages :
There is no intrinsic difficulty in scattering pieces of
paper any more than there is in scattering pieces of steel,
but the desired destination of the two forms of missile
varies, as does the effect they are intended to produce. A
shell, to secure its maximum effect, should burst in the
centre of a group of men ; propaganda leaflets, on the \
contrary, should be dispersed as widely as possible, and then |
should avoid the highly disciplined group, and should arrive
within the grasp of the lonely sentry, free from the influence
of his compatriots, and with nothing else to divert his •
thoughts. The group would probably treat a leaflet as a
joke, the isolated man would read it through sheer boredom,
and would possibly be induced to believe that there was
something in its argument. And once propaganda has
secured even the vaguest mistrust of the doctrines that it
combats, its task is more than half accomplished.
Both the Allied Powers and the Central Empires experi-
mented with propaganda projectiles, using the trench'
mortar as their means of projection. The idea was, in most
cases, to construct a bomb with a small bursting charge,
which should, upon its arrival over the opposing lines,
release a shower of pamphlets upon the heads of an aston-
ished enemy. But the system had its obvious drawbacks.
A trench mortar has always been an unpopular weapon,
credited with the effect of incurring retaliation more than
outweighing the damage it may possibly produce. Further,
the most susceptible might well be expected to resent a
shower of words hurled at him by so direct a method or,
if not to resent it, at all events to ridicule it as rather too
obvious a ruse de guerre. There is something inconsistent
about an army that makes life unbearable with “ flying
pigs ” one moment, and the next sends out, through the
mouths of the very same weapons, a flood of literature
proclaiming that all men arc brothers, or some other
pacific doctrine. It was not long before the trench mortar,
as a projector of propaganda, was abandoned in favour of j
the aeroplane.
This later weapon seemed at first to have every qualifi-
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182 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
cation for the purpose. It could scatter innumerable
leaflets from any convenient height, and, owing to the
length of time taken by them in falling, their arrival had no
visible connection with its flight. Far more effect would
naturally be produced by a leaflet blowing into a trench
from nowhere in particular than from one obviously hurled
by a lethal engine. Further, the aeroplane had a far greater
\ penetration, could scatter its propaganda over rest-billets
' and railheads as well as over the trenches themselves.
The advantages of this were twofold : the leaflets could
i be found and picked up over a far greater area, and men
I some way back from the line had more leisure and inclina-
tion to ponder their contents. But, on the other hand
there were many other calls upon the aeroplanes available.
It was argued with a considerable show of reason that if a
plane could be sent upon a flight over hostile territory it
would be better employed dropping bombs than propaganda.
Some went so far as to say that the best propaganda that
could be dropped over the enemy were bombs and plenty
of them, a contention that was correct as regards the Rhine
towns and incorrect as regards London. At all events, it
was felt that the aeroplane was too valuable a fighting
machine proper to be employed as a disseminator of leaflets.
The next idea was the employment of observation
balloons, which were to carry a supply of pamphlets to be
thrown overboard when the wind was blowing towards the
enemy lines. Apart from the fact that the occupants of
the balloon were usually too busy with their proper function
of observation to worry much about casting packets of
paper into space, the observation balloon had many dis-
advantages. A more ingenious and elaborate development
of the observation balloon scheme was a revival of the man-
lifting kite. When the wind was favourable, the kite was
flown from some suitable spot, and a “ follower," carrying
a bundle of leaflets, caused to travel up the taut string of
the kite. The " follower ” was fitted with an automatic
release, which functioned at a predetermined height,
allowed the leaflets to fly away, and the ‘ ‘ follower ’ ’ to fall
to the ground again ready for recharging. When the con-
trivance did not jamb, it was a very entertaining toy to
play with.
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188
It was not until late in 1916 that the free balloon was
seriously considered as a vehicle of propaganda. The idea
had always been obvious ; load a balloon with the leaflets
it was intended to distribute, send it up with a favourable
wind, and there you were. The difficulty lay in predicting
within a thousand miles or so where the balloon would
come down. It was not until the science of meteorology,
urgently impelled by the needs of the Artillery, made its
marvellous war-time developments, that balloons could be
used scientifically. " Meteor,” in the shape of the various
meteorological experts attached to the forces, eventually
became able to gauge the velocity and direction of the wind
at practically any height in any given locality. The rest
was simple, so soon as a simple and reliable release had been
evolved. You took your balloon to a given spot, say, ten
miles behind the lines, you knew your balloon would rise
to, say, six thousand feet, and travel at that height until its
burden was released. “ Meteor ” gave the velocity of the
wind at twenty miles an hour, south-west, at that height
and place. Forty miles from the balloon position, and
bearing north-east, was an enemy concentration camp.
Load your balloon with the required type of propaganda
leaflet, set your release to act in rather less than two hours, to
allow of drift of the leaflets when falling, and there you were.
. . . The balloons were made of paper, “ doped '' with a
preparation to render them hydrogen tight.
As equipped for service in France, a propaganda balloon
section consisted of a couple of three-ton lorries for the
conveyance of the hydrogen cylinders, balloons, and leaflets,
with the necessary personnel of officer and a few men.
Certain stations were selected, such that some desirable
target could be reached with any direction of wind from
north round by west to south. . . .
The means of attachment was the solution of the whole
problem of the use of balloons, and was as simple as it was
ingenious. A length of the orange-coloured woven tinder,
sold at every tobacconist's for use in pipe-lighters, was
taken, and one end of it fixed to the balloon. The sheaves
of leaflets were strung on cotton tags, as used for binding
papers in Government offices. The end of each tag was
driven through the length of tinder at calculated distances
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184 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
from the free end. The rate of burning of the tinder was
ascertained by experiment, and found to be, say, one inch
in five minutes. If the target were twenty miles an hour,
the balloon would be over the target in forty minutes. The
tags would then be inserted at close intervals from six to
ten inches from the end of the tinder.
Just as the balloon was released, the end of the tinder
was held against a lighted cigarette, and commenced to bum.
The Allies had the wind at their backs during most of the
summer and autumn of 1918, when their propaganda
attained its greatest proportions, and material was
distributed over a zone, 350 miles deep, behind the German
lines. By August they had achieved a distribution of
100,000 leaflets a day, which meant that between four and
five million leaflets were sent over monthly.
The Allies solved the problem of distribution much better
than the Germans were able to do. One of the finest strokes
•
of German propaganda was the publication of the captured
list in the Gazette des Ardennes . This made it possible for
the people in the occupied territory to have a valid excuse
to read a paper which was obviously pro-German.
A clandestine Press service was built up to supply the
Belgians with news of the Entente world, and was an
important influence alike in the stimulation of their own
moral, and in permeating the nearest German populations.*
This review of the problem of demoralizing the enemy
seems to show that the principal theme is the impossibility
of victory, and that a discouraged nation may turn against
an ally, or its own governing class, and lose by the secession
*
of minority nationalities.
1 See, for the story of La libre Belgique, Jean Massart, The Secret Prtfs
of Belgium. \
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CONDITIONS AND METHODS OF PROPAGANDA : A SUMMARY
Successful propaganda depends upon the adroit use of
means u h der~ YaVou fable conditions. A means is anything
which the propagandist can manipulate ; a condition is
anything to which he must adapt. A propagandist can
alter the organization of his activities, modify the streams
of suggestion which he releases, and substitute one device
of communication foT another, but he must adjust himself
to traditional prejudices, to certain objective facts of
international life, and to the general tension level of the
community. Both the conditions and the methods of
propaganda have been mentioned explicitly or by impli-
cation in the course of the present study, and the time
has come to draw them together in more systematic
form.
^ The achievements of propaganda are affected by thtf
traditional prejudices of the nation and of each constituent
group. The French had the advantage of a great historic
friendship with America, a heritage of the gratitude which
the struggling colonists felt for aid of the French in the
Revolution. The Germans counted upon the sympathy of
their former nationals, and of the Irish-Jewish blocs. The
British could rely upon a very deep and pervasive community
of feeling, which was so general that it was frequently ignored
186
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186 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
in the presence of more spectacular and less profound
attitudes.
Propagandists are always likely to run foul of some
deeply imbedded prejudice. Thus the Germans seized upon
the alleged franc-tircur excesses of the Belgian people to
justify their own acts to the world and to the German public.
But when the Prussians began to circulate tales of Catholic
priests who urged their parishioners to kill the invader with
every means in their command, a cross-current was set up
at home. The Catholics arose to contradict the rumours..
The Catholics had organized a Zentralauskunftstelle der
katholischen Presse in 1900. This was revamped into the
Rcchtschutzstelle fur die katholische Geistlichkeit at Frankfurt
in 1913. In 1906 another service was set up at Cologne,
bearing the name Priesterverein Pax fiir das katholische
Deutschland. Both services began to cast insinuations and
contradictions upon the Prussian versions of Catholic
atrocities in Belgium, and these were snapped up abroad and
used by the Allies to discredit the German tales about
Belgium. 1
Such prejudices continually circumscribed the propa-
gandist. J His freedom is further restricted by the network
of connections between nations. The British held the cable
communications between America and Europe in the hollow
of their hands, and this had far-reaching results. The
Germans tried in vain to offset such a handicap by exploiting
the wireless, but with mediocre success. Anyone who knew
the history of American foreign attitudes could have pre-
1 See AJWt Hftlhvig, *' Zur Pjychologie des Belgischen Fraaktireur-
krieses.*' J'reuss. Jahrb., Bd. 174 : 3^-388.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
CONDITIONS AND METHODS
187
dieted in 1914 that the British viewpoint stood an excellent
chance of infecting America, for American public opinion has
often been a cockle-shell, floating helplessly and uncon-
sciously in the wake of the British man-of-war. After the
Civil War the American nation was a warm friend of Russia
and bought “ Seward's ice box ” as a gift of gratitude for
the Tsar’s moral support during the conflict. In the super-
vening years, America had few direct contacts with Russia,
but American friendship passed over into active hostility.
The explanation is very simple : America was fed on the
British Press and Britain was in conflict with Russia.
There are objective similarities and differences in social
customs and institutions between two nations, and these
cannot be waved aside. After all is said and done, it was
true that Britain, France and Belgium were more demo-
cratic than Germany in their basic political institutions, and
that Americans spoke English and read English, and not
German. Americans knew Shakespeare and not Goethe,
and they thought the Battle of Waterloo was won by the
Duke of Wellington, and not by BlUcher. The basic
patterns of American life were more English than German. 1
There are often interpenetrations of population which
make it difficult to control sentiment at will. The customs
and habits and competitive power of various immigrant
groups in America influenced the American attitude and
the attitude of their countries of origin. Many of the
Russians who returned home when the Revolution came,
carried back tales of reeking tenements and twelve-hour
/
1 For an able exposition of these points see the booklet by Professor
Moritz Bonn, Anuriha ali Feind.
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188 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
shifts in the steel mills. When the American propagandists
undertook to extol the virtues of American democracy,
some embarrassing questions were always forthcoming from
the audience.
One form of population interpenetration, which is
particularly important in war, is the quartering of invaders
\ upon the inhabitants of a conquered territory. A foreign
military occupation produces all sorts of friction between
the authorities and the inhabitants, and the distressing
incidents which abound in war are particularly common
then. The Germans occupied Belgium and were embar-
rassed by compromising collisions with the civilians. The
Allies were able to make tremendous play with everything
that happened and a great deal that did not ; the Germans
could only retort by repeating the horrors of the Russian
occupation of Eastern Prussia, which was too far away to
arouse the sympathy and pity of the Americans.
There may be important connecting links of an economic
character between two countries. It is generally recognized
as a principle of international politics that when a country
has loaned money to another it is likely to come to the aid
of its debtor, should a third party threaten -its ability to pay.
The Americans who loaned their money to the Allies during
the period of American neutrality may have advanced it
out of sentimental preference for the Allied cause (the House
of Morgan was English in origin and affiliation), but qnce
tied to the Allies, the cords of sympathy were strengthened
by bonds of gold. The sequel confinns the axiom that the
creditor is bound to the debtor.
During the war-time the relative military strength of the
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189
contesting parties is a decisive point. Great movements
of retreat cannot be concealed for long, and prolonged
humiliation spreads the seeds of discord and defeatism.
The German propagandists could invent no new hope to
replace the disillusionment of midsummer, 1918 ; the appeal
to arms had exhausted their credit, and destroyed the simple
faith of the masses. Lord Grey has written some sage words
about how easy it is to exaggerate the role of diplomacy in
war-time, and what he says applies to propaganda, which is
one of the tools of diplomacy. The pivotal front is the
military front.
Even the battle of the Marne was. to outside opinion,
rather the saving of Paris than a great victory, an arrest of
the German advance rather than a turning of the tide in
favour of the latter. Then followed the first battle of Y pres,
in which the Franco- British line was brought near to another
catastrophe. In 1915 there were no Allied successes of
magnitude sufficient to counteract the deplorable impression
made by the huge Russian disasters. In 1916 the Germans
failed at Verdun, but the French suffered heavily, and the
year was rather one of German failure than of Allied success,
except the Brusiloff offensive. This brought the Ruman-
ians in. Even the gaps in the Austrian line made by
Brusiloff were completely stopped in a short time. The
task of Allied diplomacy in Europe during the war was
indeed uphill and thankless work. 1
The preceding paragraphs have enumerated some of the
connecting links which bind nations together and which
condition the success of propaganda. These are, for the most
part, quite tangible things which anyone can see on close .
inspection : the communication network, similarities and
differences in customs and institutions, interpenetration of ■
1 Lord Grey. Twenty- Five Yeats. II : 165.
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190 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
‘ population, economic ties, relative military power. We now
\ come to a limiting factor which is unquestionably present,
but which is neither simple to describe nor to explain : the .
tension level.
By the tension level is meant that condition of adaption
or mal-adaption, which is variously described as public
anxiety, nervousness, irritability, unrest, discontent or strain.
The propagandist who deals with a community when its
tension level is high, finds that a reservoir of explosive energy
can be touched off by the same small match which would
normally ignite a bonfire.
Some day it will undoubtedly be possible to connect the
fundamental biological and psychological processes with
this phenomenon, but to-day the field is a battleground of
rival conjectures. Every school of psychological thought
seems to agree, however, that war is a type of influence,
which has vast capacities for releasing repressed impulses,
and for allowing their external manifestations in direct form.
There is thus a general consensus that the propagandist is
able to count upon very primitive and powerful allies in
mobilizing his subjects for war-time hatred of the enemy.
The possibility also exists that there are physiological or
psychological types which respond more readily than others
to the bellicose stimuli circulated by the propagandist. 1
It may be that further research will confirm the hypothesis
of Clark Wissler, that there are special situations in the
1 For the concept of the tension level in individual psychology, see the
masterly essay by Pierre Janet In the TraiU de psychologic (edited by
Dumas). Tome i. Applications of the notion of liberated repressions to
war will be found in the books of such widely separated psychologist* as
Ernest Jones and George Patrick ( Essays in Psycho-analysis and The
Psychology of Relaxation) .
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191
cultural life of a group in which definite psychological dis-
positions lead toward expansion. This anthropologist
writes :
when a group comes into a new solution to one of its import-*
ant culture problems, it becomes zealous to spread that idea'
abroad, and is moved to embark upon an era of conquest^
to force the recognition of its merits. 1
%
He also says that the extension of the material culture
zone beyond the zone of political control, is likely to produce
irritations which lead to an attempt to enlarge the political
zone to coincide.*
Certainly, there is reason for believing that the propa- ^
gandist who works upon an industrialized people, is dealing
with a jnore tense and mobile population than that which
inhabits an agrarian state. Industrialism has apparently
increased the danger from those secret mines which are
laid by repression, for it has introduced both the monotony
of machine tending, and the excitement of much secondary
stimulation. The rhythm and clang of exacting machinery
is no less characteristic of the industrial way of life, than the
blazing array of billboards, window displays, movies, vaude-
villes, and newspapers, which convey abundant and baffling
possibilities of personal realization. The stage is set, and
a coarse patriotism, fed by the wildest rumours and the
most violent appeals to hate and the animal lust of blood,
passes by quick contagion through the crowded life of the
cities, and recommends itself everywhere by the satisfaction
it affords to the sensational cravings. It is less the savage
yearning for personal participation in the fray than the
feeling of a neurotic imagination that marks Jingoism.*
* Man and Culture, p. 339. • Same, p. 174.
• John A. Hobson, The Psychology of Jingoism. Chapter I, Iondon, 1900.
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Both literacy and the Press are offspring of the machine
age. The Press lives by advertising ; advertising follows
circulation, and circulation depends on excitement. " What
sells a newspaper ? ” A former associate of Lord North-
cliffe answers :
The first answer is “ war. 1 ' War not only creates a
supply of news but a demand for it. So deep-rooted is the
fascination in war and all things appertaining to it that . . .
a paper has only to be able to put up on its placard “ A
Great Battle ” for its sales to mount up.*
4
^7
a
This is the key to the proclivity of the Press to aggravate
public anxiety in moments of crises.
C So much for the general factors which condition the
'i success of propaganda. ^Success depends upon traditional
I prejudices, objective connections between nations, and the
( changing level of popular irritability. No matter how
skilful the propagandist may be in organizing his staff,
selecting suggestions, and exploiting instruments of trans-
mission, his manipulative skill will go for nought if there
is no favourable juxtaposition of social forces to aid him.J
The degree to which the propagandist is master of ms
fate depends in part upon the method of organization
which he adopts. A number of agencies always engage in
greater or less measure in war propaganda work ; the
Foreign Office, the Diplomatic and Consular staffs ; the
War Department, the General Staff and Field Headquarters ;
and the principal service departments of internal adminis-
tration. Since propaganda is, by its nature, incapable of
complete segregation in the hands of one staff, unity must
1 Kennedy Jones, Fleet Street and Downing Street , p. 108.
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be achieved by the devious path of co-ordination, rather
than by the simple act of Exclusive delegation. -jDuring the
last War the nations sought to minimize the dangers oT^
contradiction, malproportion and duplication by resorting
to one of three main types of co-ordination : the Press
conference (Germany) ; the committee of executives, each
responsible for a principal branch of propaganda work
(Great Britain) ; and the single propaganda executive,
operating in the name of the principal departments (the
United StatefyJ^The Germans got no further than common
Press conferences and sporadic efforts at co-ordination
because of the excessive friction between their civil and
military authorities. Except for special commissioners who
were sent to certain of the most important foreign countries,
the French relied upon their existing agencies of govern-
ment. The British were finally constrained to set up a
committee of executives of approximately ministerial
importance, each one of whom was charged with some such
important branch of propaganda as enemy, home, allied or
neutral. By securing a man of prestige to head each
important sendee, policy was itself occasionally modified
for the better. Northcliffe brought the Cabinet to straighten
out its policy toward the Italians and the Jugo-Slavs, and
the results vindicated the maxim that policy and propaganda
should go hand in hand. The United States solved its
problem by creating an ex-officio committee of the heads of
principal departments (State, War and Navy) and one
earnest and aggressive man who did the effectual work.
Integration in Creel’s hands was justifiable because of the
comparative simplicity of America’s propaganda both at
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home and abroad. The British had to deal with such a
complex of foreign problems that extreme integration might
have stifled ready adjustment.
The war experience seems to warrant the belief that the
directors of each important propaganda service should be
men whose prestige equals that of the policy determining
officers, and that the staff should be selected from newspaper-
men — rather than proprietors — from popular writers, and
from the members of the new propaganda profession.
The War abundantly demonstrated that the relation
between the propaganda services and the legislature is a
thorny problem. The executive arm of a democratic
government may pervert a propaganda bureau to partisan,
personal or class ends, and it may bind the legislature in
advance, by stimulating public opinion, to favour its own
policy. The executive may use the bureau to popularize
an erroneous picture of the facts, and the legislature, con-
scious of all this, may assail the executive in unmeasured
terms and undermine public confidence in its leaders. The
best adjustment here does not depend upon statutes or
ordinances, but upon the cultivation of informal channels of
acquaintance and communication through which legislators
may be brought into closer contact with the facts of the
service. If matters go badly, they can, and should, protest.
But their remarks should be grounded upon something more
tangible than mere mistrust. It was the failure to close the
gap between the legislator and the administrator, which led
to the undignified and unjust criticism of the Committee of
Public Information in the American Congress. There is
no doubt, of course, that democratic governments must
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assume the task, regardless of all complicating difficulties,
of mobilizing minds as well as men and money in war.
The general form of propaganda organization is a van- \
able one, which the propagandist may adapt to his purposes. •
His problem, however, consists principally in selecting the **
social suggestions best calculated to evoke the desired ^
responses. In this he is governed, in the first instance, by
the broad strategic aims of propaganda. There are four
major objectives :
,i>(i) To mobilize hatred against the enemy ;
' (2) To preserve the friendship of ^Jlifjs ;
i (3) To preserve the friendship and, if possible, to procure
• the co-operation of neutrals ; , ,
(4) To demoralize the enemy.
/
The general theory of the appeals to be employed to
achieve each aim has been developed in the previous chap-
ters of this inquiry, and may be summarized rather briefly
at this point.
To mobilize the hatred of the people against the enemy,
represent the opposing nation as a menacing, murderous
aggressor. Represent the enemy as an obstacle to the #
realization of the cherished ideals and dreams of the nation
as a whole, and of each constituent unit. It is through the
elaboration of war aims that the obstructive rdle of the
enemy becomes particularly evident. Represent opposing
nation as satanic ; it violates all the moral standards (mores) '
of the group, and insults its self-esteem. The maintenance
of hatred depends upon supplementing the direct repre-
sentations of the menacing, obstructive, satanic enemy by
assurances of ultimate victory.
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, To preserve friendly relations with an ally, the cardinal
themes are our strenuous exertion in the prosecution of -the
war, and our hearty assent to the cherished war aims of the
ally. This may be supported by demonstrations of respect
and esteem and by all the themes of domestic propaganda.
To win the f riendship of a neutral, lead the neutral to
identify his own interests with the defe at of our enemy. In
addition to the ordinary devices, seek to^draw_ th& neutral
into active co-operation in some non-military capacity. If
all else fails, re-enforce pacifism, by portraying the horrors
of war, and the unwillingness of the enemy to make peace,
and stir up trouble between two neutrals.
To demoralize the enemy, substitute new hates for old.
The edge of animosity may be somewhat blunted by direct
counterstimulation, but diversion depends mainly upon
spreading discouragement and instigating defeatism. The
way is then paved for violent campaigns against allies,
against the governing class, and among national minorities,
against the unity of the state.
These themes were present in each war propaganda during
the last War, but some of them were more effectively utilized
by one belligerent than another. The Britis h were amazingly
successful in the development of humanitarian war aims.
The Germans aro used much re sentment and suspicion
abroad by talking about a war of German Kultur, and by
underplaying the humanitarian ideal. The British talked
about a war to protect international law and to guarantee
the sanctity of treaties, and they fought against a monster,
known as autocratic militarism, in the name of democracy.
British public men began to talk about a war to end war
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long before the German statesmen learned this vocabulary.
Indeed, the colourless and halting pronouncements of
Bethmann-Hollweg seemed more like concessions wrested from
an unimaginative soul than programmes promulgated by a de-
termined leader. Wilsonian phraseology touched the imagina-
tion of powerful elements throughout the world. In th e duel
of words the Germans fought with pasteboard against steel.
The Germans were never able to efface the initial impres-
sion that they were aggressors. This was due in part to the
stupidity of their own appeals. They continued to talk
about " Einkreisung ” in America, where the danger of
encirclement is a theoretical conjecture for which there is
no counterpart in recent American tradition. They never
dramatized the aggressiveness of their enemies as did the -
Allies, who invented the myth of the “ Potsdam Council."
They never succeeded in getting over the idea of a war
hatched by a vain and dissolute uncle (Edward VII.) in a fit
of pique at the success of his nephew (William II.) ; they
failed to humanize and dramatize the diplomatic game, and
held fast to diplomatic jargon and German catchwords,
which lacked fire and fury in America.
NJuch of the German propaganda proved to be a
boomerang. It is appalling that responsible directors of
propaganda should have done everything in their power to
circulate the charge that the Belgians were sniping. The
Kaiser went so far as to make a public protest to President
Wilson. The truth is that the report that the Belgians were
sniping aroused admiration in America. It seemed to show
how plucky these little Belgians really were, for the
American public was a civilian public, and it knew that
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Belgium was little and that Germany was big, and it cheered
whenever the underdog bit.
The explanation of the maladroitness of the German
propaganda is partly the influence which the military mind
had upon it. To the soldier it is utterly inexcusable for a
civilian to shoot a man in uniform. He has a strict code of
ethics, which is dictated by consideration for his own skin,
and he distinguishes sharply between what is permitted a
man in uniform, and what is permitted a man out of uniform.
These elementary distinctions are vague, and nearly
meaningless to the public mind in such a country as the
United States, where military training is the exception and
not the rule. The American cartoonists reflected the civilian
mind when they lampooned the big, coarse German, who
howled to heaven that the little fellow whom he was beating
• had stung him with a pebble from a sling shot. The failure
I of the Germans to neutralize the Cavell incident has already
been alluded to, and it typifies a military mind which is
opaque to the civilian point of view.
Instead of complaining about the snipers in Belgium the
Germans would have been better advised to have appointed
a distinguished jury of neutrals to investigate the Welfare
of the Belgian people, and to have broadcasted its report all
over the world. As it was, they never neutralized the effect
of the Bryce report.
The Germans cast no anchors to windward during the
opening weeks of the War. They talked about the invincible
German army, and predicted victory on a definite date. 1
1 The reason their propaganda began rather late and lost many openings
vraa that they expected an early military victory.
i
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They did not advertise the invasions in East Prussia, and
their march through Belgium and northern France seemed
to belie any theory of unpreparedness.
The French propaganda was lucid and, simple. Her
retiring armies told a prima facie story of who had been
prepared for the War (after the earty cloud of false news had
blown aside), and her chief propaganda was that of simple
satanism. The Germans were never able to popularize so
striking an epithet as " Hun ” or " Boche ” and their clumsy
exhortations to hate or their sneering references to the “ All-
lies/’ were much less powerful and invidious. The French
vocabulary had powerful words like humanity and democracy,
which reverberated with a tremendous clang abroad.
Little attention has been paid here to that aspect of
influencing, which is often called “ propaganda of the deed/'
By this is usually meant some isolated act of violence,
which is intended to produce a powerful impression. The
dropping of bombs upon enemy cities was less for immediate
military and strategic purposes, than for propaganda pur-
poses. It was supposed that civilian moral would crack
under the strain of perpetual fear. This, besides the pro-
paganda of frightfulness and other acts of frightfulness, was
supposed to produce discouragement and defeatism.
Since much of the talk about frightfulness during the last
War was sheer propaganda against the enemy, the effect
of overt acts of this kind can be judged by the influence of
such propaganda. On t he whole, its chief result was t o
stiffen the d etermination of the people to defend themselves.
It may be unreliable, but there is a story with a flash of
insight which tells about the German aviator who objected
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to dropping any more bombs on London, because he had not
entered the War to be a recruiting officer for the British
army. Civilians become habituated to raids, as Londoners
did to the Zeppelin raids, and humour and ridicule soften
the trial. The London stores advertised all sorts of acces-
sories for '* Zeppelin parties," and one is even supposed to
have offered a special line of “ Zepp nighties."
" The Allied propaganda of discouragement made little
impression on the Germans until 1918. Indeed, the British
wasted some of their early effort on vain boastings, when the
German army was actually in victorious march against them.
1 The American propaganda against the Germans was essen-
* tially a propaganda of discouragement and revolution. It
t was the British who did most of the propaganda of dis-
t solution against Austro-Hungarian armies, and they scored
\ notable successes. Success in propaganda of this kind
depends much more upon the existence of strains and stresses
• in an enemy state than does success in propaganda among
• neutrals.
i
The preceding paragraphs have contrasted the strategy
of some of the principal War propagandas, and rehearsed the
general theory of how to select powerful appeals for the
achievement of the four propaganda aims. There arc humbler
criteria of tactical nature, which the working propagandist
applies to each suggestion. The tacti cal objectives may be
summarized thus :
1
1. To arouse the interest of specific groups ;
2. To nullify inconvenient ideas ;
3. To avoid untruth which is likely to be contradicted
before the achievement of the strategic purpose.
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Effective propaga nda is catholic jit its appeal. It ignores
no loyalty inside a nation. Protestants, Catholics, Jews,
workers, financiers, farmers, merchants, city dwellers, and
ruralites, sportsmen and pliilosophers, men of affairs and
academicians, women and men, old and young ; every pos-
sible line of cleavage in the nation is appealed to by some
direct or indirect device.*
R. J. R. S. Wreford exactly described this process when
he said that the expert propagandist
must decide as to the public which is most likely to be, or
to become, sympathetically disposed toward the interests
which he represents ; he must then select the aspects of
those interests best calculated to appeal to the predilections
of this public ; and he must then present these aspects in
an attractive manner. 1
Propaganda material must reach the meanest as well as
the keenest intelligence. In the case of the crude prophecies
of victory which were made during the War, it was safe to
predict that they would carry reassurance to the most
superstitious and credulous strata of the population, but
that the sophisticated would pass them contemptuously by.
It is perfectly safe to launch the crude and sophisticated
together, for the people capable of reacting to the latter will
not be estranged by the former ; they will merely remain
indifferent and condescending. A cock-and-bull story about
the Kaiser’s lust for war, as revealed by his habit of spitting
three times whenever the Union Jack was displayed, would
1 For an example, sec the description of Lithuanian propaganda on page
118.
2 " Propaganda Good and Evil,” 19 th Century and After, 93 (1923):
514-524. He patly defined propaganda as "the dissemination of inter-
ested fact and opinion."
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probably not win Belgravia, no matter how popular it might
be in Poplar. But a learned tome, prepared with all the
dexterity of the trained academician, could defend the same
general theme to the satisfaction of an intelligent public.
Part of the superiority of British propaganda during the War
was due to its amazing suppleness. In 1917 the' journalist
Arthur Bullard commented on this fact and wrote,
The appeal which brought the first wave of volunteers
was " Bleeding Belgium,” the fluty of the strong as good
sportsmen to defend the weak. Then the attempt was
made to stir national pride by posters quoting the Kaiser’s
alleged insulting reference to “ the contemptible little
English Army.” An effort was made to frighten the people
by the supposed danger of invasion. Somewhat later,
pictures were displayed of the famous treaty which had
been called a " scrap of paper.” Every note was sounded
from rage against ” the baby killers ” to fidelity to the
pledged words as the basis of international relations. But
by far the greatest response came on the appeal to demo-
cratic idealism, the issue between popular rule and military
despotism. 1
^Every suggestion must have an interesting appeal to
a definite group, but some suggestions must be expressly
designed to nullify inconvenient ideas. This brings us to
the second tactical standard of good propaganda, which
appears in the conduct of war influencing. When a govern-
ment undertakes to influence the people within its own
boundaries, it is usually able to control the cable, telegraph,
telephone, Press, postal and wireless services, while war lasts.
But psychological frontiers nevei coincide with geographical
frontiers, and summary suppression is never a complete
1 Mobilizing America . p. 44.
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success. Governments learn to nullify rather^than to conceal
und esirab le ideas.
Part of this technique is the control of emphasis. Under-
emphasis may be procured in the Press by relegating an
item to an obscure column with an inconspicuous headline,
by incorporating in another story, by omitting detail, by
contradiction on the part of the writer or " witness,” by
quotations which cast doubt upon the assertion and related
devices. Conversely, favourable ideas may be given pro-
minent columns, striking headlines, independent treatment,
circumstantial detail, impressive corroboration and ceaseless
repetition.
In practice, the simplest mode of nullifying important
reports is by the device of compensation. It is ridiculous to
pretend that the enemy never wins a point. The depressing
news of an enemy gain should, however, be counterbalanced
by a simultaneous gain. This was what Winston Churchill
used to do at the Admiralty, for
he would hold on to a bit of bad news for a time on the
chance of getting a bit of good news to publish as an offset,
and T must say that it not infrequently came off. 1
When American preparations began to assume disquieting
proportions, the German Press played up the collapse of
Russia.
Compensation sometimes takes the form of pointing out
that the enemy is as badly off as the home public. At one
time during the War, the food administration in Berlin
announced that 50 grammes of fresh lard would be distributed
1 Brownrigg. Indiscretions of a Naval Censor, p. 13.
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on a certain day, but circumstances intervened and it became
impossible to make good. The disappointment of the people
was somewhat appeased by the publication of impressive
statistics of the huge losses of lard, to which the enemy had
been subjected by the U-Boat campaign.
The most convenient mine of counter-propaganda material,
is the opposition Press inside a foreign country. The
German Press greeted the appointment of Foch to the
supreme command by reprinting some articles in the French
radical Press, which interpreted the appointment as a last
straw, admitting that bad leadership had brought about the
present plight at the front.
Unfavourable intelligence may be nullified by a flat denial,
but defence by denial is not of itself efficacious when alarm-
ing news is abroad. Defence by admission and justification
usually accomplishes more, especially when placed in the
form of a counter-attack. Certain losses at the front may
be covered by ostentatious hints at a great plan to draw the
enemy from his base of supplies and snare him. Poison gas
may be justified by assaulting the cruel, inhuman and illegal
methods of warfare to which the enemy has resorted.
The public should be prepared in advance for the occur-
rence of an event, which might otherwise produce an
undesirable repercussion. Thus precautions should be taken
to discredit an authority which is to render an ultimate
verdict, and which is almost certain to be unfriendly. The
Germans looked with open contempt upon the panel selected
to inquire into the Belgian atrocities, and they blackguarded
both its integrity and its technique before publishing its
results.
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The public may have bad news “ broken " to it gently by
publishing a disquieting question, followed by a few facts,
and then by the worst. Panic is thus circumvented, since
the processes of discounting the future have produced a
certain stability of response in the public mind.
When it is proposed to inaugurate a policy to which there ’
may be some objection, it is possible to instigate a demand
for the very policy which it is intended to introduce. This
is the indirect initiative, or, as a Belgian student of pro-
paganda 1 has christened it, the initiative evenUe (the fanned
initiative). He observed its operations at the time of the
Brest Litovsk negotiations between Germany and Russia.
There was a great deal of objection in Germany among the
parties of the Left to a downright policy of annexation, so
the Government proceeded cautiously. The Kolnische Volks -
zeitung published a report that the English were negotiating
with Russia for the right to occupy the Riga Islands.
Instantly there were spontaneous editorials throughout
Germany, demanding prompt action by the Imperial Govern-
ment to forestall the accursed British. The Government
took the islands.
Bad news and unwanted criticism may be nullified by 4
distracting the attention of the public from them. A
distraction is managed by springing a sensation which is
unrelated to the inconvenient focal point of attention. The
arrival of the Deutschland served this purpose in Germany
at a dull moment during the War.
Yet a third general tactical standard has emerged in the
course of our analysis. It is concerned with the relation of
1 He occupies an official position at present.
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propaganda to truth. To what extent is it necessary for
the suggestions employed in propaganda to conform to
the canons of critical veracity ?
Actual propaganda, wherever studied, has a large element
of the fake in it. f This varies from putting a false date line
on a despatch, through the printing of unverified rumours,
the printing of denials in order to convey an insinuation, to
the “ staging " of events. One of the world war fakes was
the use of pictures of the Jewish pogrom of 1905, some-
what retouched, as fresh enemy atrocities. Of a similar
type was the following : the London Daily Mirror of August
20th, 1915. published a picture of three German officers, who
held various vessels in their hands. The sub-title was,
“ Three German Cavalrymen loaded with gold and silver
loot,” which they had taken in Poland. This was, in fact, a
defaced reproduction of a picture, which had originally
appeared in the Berliner Lokalanzeiger for the 9th of June,
1914, and which had shown the winners of the cavalry com-
petition in the Griinewald. The officers had cups and
trophies in their hands. The sub-title read ;
Vom Armee-Jagdrennen in Griinewald. Von links : Lt.
Prieger, Zweiter : Lt. v. Egan-Krieger. Dritter : Lt., v.
Herder. Sieger. 1
Sir Campbell Stuart, looking back upon the British pro-
paganda from the vantage ground of a victorious peace, has
written that " only truthful statements ” should be used in
propaganda. This seems, in the light of practice, an
impracticable maxim. It was not unusual during the War
1 Ferdinand Avenarius exposed several of these falsifications during the
War in the booklet, Bi id ah Verleurrder, the enlarged, post-war edition of
which is named Die Machle im Weltwahn. A French rejoinder was named
L’imposture par I'image.
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to invent a great deal of material out of whole cloth. One
of the best examples of this sort of thing was the famous
cadaver story. Two captured photographs chanced to come
to the desk of the Chief of the British Army Intelligence,
Brigadier General J. V. Charters. One of them showed dead
German soldiers being hauled away for burial behind the
lines, and the other showed dead horses on the way to the
soap factory. Knowing the reverence of the Chinese for
their ancestors and the uncertainty of Chinese opinion
toward the Germans, he thoughtfully interchanged the titles
of the two pictures, and sent the edited material to Shanghai
for release. “ German cadavers on way to the soap factory,”
soon found its way to Europe and America and spread dis-
taste and' contempt of all things German. 1
This was, of course, a plain lie. Rut it was plausible, and
it was incapable of complete refutation during the War.
During war, plenty of horrors are sure to occur. They grow
dank and rank on every hand, and a mustard seed of truth
may blossom and bloom. Indeed, a very sophisticated
British soldier, a literary man, who was not one to be taken
in by this sort of thing, related something in his own
experience which might have given rise to a story of this
kind. Shortly after having heard this tale for the first time,
he was engaged in active fighting in Bellicourt. A British
shell squashed a German field kitchen, and what he
saw when he went to inspect the ruins, gave the clue
to the “ corpse factory.”
1 Seethe N Y. Times. 20 October. 1025. Will Irwin, the able journalist
who took the trouble to try to verify the atrocity talc 3 of the War, has
described several versions of the story that German soldiers cut 01! the
hands of Belgian babies and carried them along as souvenirs. He found
them all unproved and wildly improbable. Admiral Sims lias categorically
declared that the reports of the terrible inhumanity of submarine com-
manders was, with a single exception, pure fabrication.
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A quite simple case. Shells had gone into cookhouses
of ours, long before then, and had messed the cooks with
the stew. 1
The truth about the relation of truth to propaganda seems
to be that it is never wise to use material which is likely to
be contradicted by certain unconcealable events before the_
political objective of propaganda is attained. * It is foolish
to promise victory on a definite date in the imminent future,
because the prediction may be falsified by the event and
lead to a certain backwash of discouragement and suspicion.
It is perfectly permissible to assert that ultimate success is
sure, even though no critically-trained intelligence could
accept such a statement as proved, because it is impossible
to disprove this proposition before the attainment or the
total eclipse of all hope of attaining the political objective.
It is evident that propaganda must avoid self-contradiction
in the same context addressed to the same group or to groups
in intimate contact with one another. There is com-
paratively little danger in telling the Protestants through
their official organs that the war is a great Protestant
crusade, and in encouraging the Catholics to regard it as a
great Catholic movement ; but it would be absurd to mix
the appeals to the same audience. Every special group tends
to make the war over in its own image, and the task of the
propagandist is usually to facilitate, rather than to fabricate.
The three tactical principles which have just been
recapitulated, may be stated in these words :
i. Suggestions should be circulated which promise to
arouse the interest of specific groups.
1 C. E. Montague, Disenchimtmenl, p. 93.
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2 . Suggestions should be chosen to nullify inconvenient
ideas which cannot be suppressed.
3 . Suggestions should be used which are likely to pass
uncontradicted until the propaganda aim is realized, and
this implies, in particular, that self-contradiction in the
same context to the same public must be avoided.
The successful choice of propaganda material according
to these standards presupposes accurate prediction, not only
of the immediate results of its circulation, but of the counter-
currents which ma}' be instigated. If methods of prior
testing can be devised, the propagandist will approximate
somewhat closer to the omniscience once imputed to him
by a New York newspaper, which wrote,
the public mind to the trained propagandist is a pool into
which phrases and thoughts are dropped like acids, with a
foreknowledge of the reactions that will take place, just as
Professor Loeb at the Rockefeller Institute can make a
thousand crustaceans stop swimming aimlessly about in
the bowl and rush with one headlong impulse to the side
where the light comes from, merely by introducing into
the water a little drop of a chemical . 1
Thus far, our survey of the means of propaganda has
covered the methods of organizing and the criteria for
selecting suggestions for strategic or tactical reasons. There
remains the problem of choosing from among the numerous
instruments of transmission which are available. Sug-
gestions may be spoken, written, pictorial * or musical, and
1 New York Tribune , July rath, 1918. Cited in Military Intelligence
booklet on Propaganda in its Military and Legal Aspects, p. 93. Stem-
Rubarth has named the *' Priifung der mdglxcfur Ruchwirkung " among
his five principles. Sec his Propaganda als polilisches Instrument.
1 The literature of caricature, cartoon and illustration during the War
is reviewed in L. M. Salmon, The Newspaper and the Historian. See
especially p. 381 and after. Karl Demeter dealt with the film propaganda
of the Entente in the Archiv j. Politik u. Geschichte, 4 (1925) : 214-231.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
210 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
the possible variations in the form of the stimulus-carrier
are infinite. The soundest method for the propagandist to
follow is to cultivate the habit of identifying himself
imaginatively with the subjects to be influenced, and to
explore all the possible avenues of approach to their atten-
tion. Consider, from this point of view, a group of people
who are riding in a street car. They may be influenced by
placards posted inside the car, by posters on the billboards
along the track, by newspapers which they read, by conver-
sations which they overhear, by leaflets which are openly or
surreptitiously slipped into their hands, by street demon-
strations at halting places, and possibly by yet other carriers
of suggestions.
Of possible occasions for suggestion there is no end.
People walk along the streets or ride in automobiles, trams,
subways, elevated trains, boats, electrical or steam railwa}'s ;
people congregate in theatres, churches, lecture halls, eating
places, athletic parks, concerts, barber shops and beauty
parlours, coffee-houses and drug stores ; people work in
offices, warehouses, mills, factories and conveyances. An
inspection of the habit patterns of each community reveals
a web of mobility routes and congregating centres, which
may be taken advantage of for the dissemination of interested
fact and opinion.
No obiter dicta about the comparative values of a given
system of transmitting stimuli can have the same importance
as the habit of mind which enables the propagandist to test
each given situation for its inherent possibilities. The forms
of suggestions are few and elemental, but the possible
occasions and carriers are infinite. The technical literature
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
CONDITIONS AND METHODS
211
on advertising is full of the most precise information on the
effect of different colours, sizes, shapes and elevations of
outdoor posters on suggestion. All this is indispensable
to the working propagandist, but it is distinctly ancillary
to the problem of achieving and preserving a perspective on
the problem of control, which uses broad and rather flexible
categories of analysis. These arc the leading questions :
^fhat are the proposed subjects of stimulation doing ? How
many separate occasions can be isolated ? How many spoken,
written, pictorial, musical or demonstrative suggestions can
be interposed ? What are carriers by which they may be
transmitted into the experience-world of the subjects ?
For the sake of suggesting the more common instruments
of propaganda, Mr. Creel’s summary of the work of the
Committee on Public Information may be quoted :*
Thirty odd booklets were printed in several languages.
Seventy-five million copies were circulated in America, and
many million copies were circulated abroad. Tours were
arranged for the Blue Devils (French soldiers), Pershing’s
Veterans, and the Belgians, and mass meetings were arranged
in many communities. Forty-live war conferences were
held. The Four Minute Men commanded the volunteer
services of 75,000 speakers, operating in 5,200 communities,
and making a total of 755,190 speeches.
With the aid of a volunteer staff of several hundred
translators, the Committee supplied the foreign language
Press of America with selected articles. It planned war
exhibits for the state fairs of the United States, a series of
inter- Allied war expositions, and secured millions of dollars-
worth of free advertising space from the Press, periodical,
car and outdoor advertising forces of the country.
It used 1,438 drawings prepared by volunteers for the
production of posters, window cards and similar material.
1 Adapted from George Creel. How We Advertised America.
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212 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
It issued a daily newspaper with a 100,000 circulation for
official use. It ran an information service and syndicated
feature articles for the Press. Plate-matter for the country
Press, and specialized material for the labour, religious and
women’s Press was supplied. Moving pictures were com-
mercially successful in America and effective abroad, such
as " Pershing’s Crusaders,” ” America’s Answer/' and
" Under Four Flags.”
Over two hundred thousand stejeopticon slides were
distributed. Still photographs were prepared, and a stream
of 700 pictures per day of military activities were censored.
Cable, telegraph and wireless were employed by an official
news service. A special mail and photograph service was
also built up for the foreign Press. Reading-rooms were
opened abroad, schools and libraries were fitted out, photo-
graphs were displayed prominently.
Missions were sent to the important districts of the world
to look after American propaganda on the spot.
The service cost the taxpayers $4,912,553, and earned
$2,825,670*23 to be applied on expenses.
As we have seen, the problem of penetrating the enemy’s
country with propaganda material was solved during the
last War by an ingenious device, the free balloon. After
employing the Press of adjacent neutral countries, stationary
balloons and aeroplanes, this mode of transmission was
finally perfected and substituted. The Allies had the
benefit of the prevailing westerly winds, and they laid down
a barrage of print over the German lines.
One of the lessons to be drawn from the success of British
propaganda in the United States is the cardinal importance
of persons as means of carrying suggestion. No avenue of
approach can safely be ignored, but the powers behind the
impersonal agencies must be reached, and this is best
managed by personal contact. The British were astute
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CONDITIONS AND METHODS
218
enough to work chiefly through Americans, and none of
their agents came to the premature disgrace and humiliation
that befell Dr. Demburg.
This completes our brief summary of the conditions and
methods of propaganda. Success, it may be reiterated,
depends upon the astute use of propaganda means (organiza-
tions, suggestions, devices) under favourable conditions.
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
CHAPTER IX
THE RESULTS OF PROPAGANDA
After this rapid review of the means and conditions of war
propaganda we are in a position to undertake an appraisal
of its results. The Jiistory of the. late War shows that
modern war must be fought on three fronts : the military
front, the economic front, and the propaganda front. The
economic blockade strangles, the propaganda confuses, and
the armed force delivers the coup de grace. Employed in
conjunction with the other arms of offence, propaganda saps
the stamina of the armed and civilian forces of the enemy,
and smoothes the path for the mailed fist of men and metal.
The economic blockade slowly squeezes the vitality out of a
nation, and depends for its maximum effect upon a prolonged
struggle. Propaganda is likewise a passive and contributory
weapon, whose chief function, is to demolish the enemy's
will to fight by intensifying depression, disillusionment and
disagreement.
As the U.S. Military Intelligence described the function
of propaganda, it
attacks the whole army at its base ; threatens to cut it
off from its base, to stop the flow of reinforcements, supplies,
ammunition, equipment, food, comforts, and above all, to
weaken the moral support that sustains the troops in the
hardships and cruelties of war far from home.
“ Armies fight as the peqple think was the wise epigram
of the 'Biitish~General Applin. It might be extended to
say that armies fight as armies think, for, as George William
Curtis said : " Thoughts are Bullets.” 1
1 Propaganda in its Military and Legal Aspects. Introduction.)
214
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Notable successes in which propaganda had an important
and perhaps a decisive part were scored in the last War. In
common with every other weapon of attack, propaganda^ '
has a surprise value, which the Central Powers realized to
tffe rfr in* the ingenious propaganda offensive, which pre-
ceded their attack upon the Italians in 1917 at Caporetto.
The spirit of the Italian armies was dissipated, and their lines
cracked and broken. In reply, the Allies won a striking
success in 1918, when they forced the postponement of the
Austro-Hungarian offensive against Italy, from April until
June, by sowing demoralization among the troops of the
subject nationalities. Mutinous troops blew up ammunition
dumps behind the lines, and sabotaged the whole military
plan.
One of the gravest triumphs of the War was won when the
Germans put the Russians out of the running. They strained
every muscle to complete the disintegration which culminated
in the second Revolution. They permitted the famou
" sealed car " to convey Lenin and forty associates fron.
Switzerland, across Germany on their way to Russia. The
ruthless Bolshevists accepted aid from any quarter and
completed the job, in spite of all the frantic work of the
American Red Cross and the special propaganda services of
the Entente group.
But the crowning victory of the War was at the expense
of the Germans. German moral depended upon the hope
that the victory which had been so many times within their
grasp, was just over the horizon. Strained to the breaking
point by the inexorable clutch of the economic blockade,
their great hopes of the spring and summer of 1918 crumpled
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216 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
into rubbish, the German army and the German people
were ready to lend an ear to the seductive voice of Mr.
Wilson.
If the great generalissimo on the military front was Foch,
the great generalissimo on the propaganda front was Wilson.
His monumental rhetoric, epitomizing the aspirations of all
humanity in periods at once lucid and persuasive, was
scattered far and wide over Germany. He declared war
upon autocracies every where, and solemnly adhered to his
distinction between the German people and the German
rulers. His speeches were one prolonged instigation to
revolt. He and Lenin were the champion revolutionists of
the age. Throughout the entire War his pronouncements
had won a substantial measure of confidence and respect
in the minds of that minority of democratically-minded men,
who longed to transform the pre-war Germany of class
discrimination and special privilege. And when the clouds
of adversity darkened the sky in 1918, they were joined by
immense numbers of their compatriots, pinched by privation
and despair, anxiously searching the heavens for portents of
a soft peace. They turned, not to Clemenceau — hard,
relentless vulture, poised like an avenging conscience, to
tear at the vitals of a fallen adversary, nor to Lloyd George
— nimble, unstable and uncertain, but to this mysterious
figure in the White House, aloof from the ordinary passions
of petty men, who spoke in elegiac prose of a better world,
when wars should be no more and a brotherhood of demo-
cratic peoples should bury their heritage of ancestral rancour,
and march toward a world of fellowship and reconciliation.
It was to this man, mercilessly ridiculed and caricatured
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217
from one end of Germany to another through long years of
hesitation and then of belligerency, that the Germans
turned in their extremity.
Could it be that at last a statesman had arisen to lead
the peoples of the world in the path of friendship and peace ?
Had a great prophet at last soared above vindictiveness
and animosity to bring understanding to a harassed uni-
verse ? This butt of ribald jest was transformed at a stroke
in those closing months of hunger, insecurity, foreboding
and hallucination into a saviour. The people grasped at
straws and saw deliverers where they had seen but pedantic
fools before.
Such matchless skill as Wilson showed in propaganda has I
never been equalled in the world’s history. He spoke to - '
the heart of the people as no statesman has ever done. For
a few brief months he embodied the faith of the idealists in a
better world, and the last desperate hope of the defeated
peoples for a soft peace. He was raised to a matchless
pinnacle of prestige and power, and his name was spoken
with reverence in varied accents in the remotest corners of
the earth. *
Just how much of Wilsonism was rhetorical exhibitionism
and how much was the sound fruit of sober reflection will
be in debate until the World War is a feeble memory. From
a propaganda point of view it was a matchless performance,
for Wilson brewed the subtle poison, which industrious men
injected into the veins of a staggering people, until the
smashing powers of the Allied armies knocked them into
submission. While he fomented discord abroad, Wilson
fostered unity at home. A nation of one hundred million
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218 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
people, sprung from many alien and antagonistic stocks, was
welded into a fighting whole, " to make the world safe for
democracy.” And the magic of his eloquence soothed the
suspicions which Central and South America cherished
toward the mighty colossus of the North, and brought most
of them into the War on the Allied side.
The propaganda of disintegration which was directed
against the tottering realm of the Hapsburgs bore fruit in
disaffection and ultimate secession among the Czechs, Slovaks*
Rumanians, Croats, Poles and Italians. The Balfour
Declaration hastened the reversal of Jewish sympathies
in 1917.
Some of the triumphs of propaganda were in the field of
recruiting. In the race for Allies, the Germans won in
Bulgaria and Turkey, but the honours went to the Allies in
the United States, Italy, Rumania, Greece and in a wide
array of lesser countries, and Germany stood isolated in
sympathy, except for Spain and Sweden. The hand of the
whole world was raised against the Teuton. The great tug
of war in America was only won by the British and the
French after a desperate struggle against the German
propaganda. The French were admirable in the very sim-
plicity of their appeal. They invoked the sacred name of
Lafayette, implored the gods of democracy, blackguarded
the Germans and advertised the Americans who had enlisted
on the side of the French. * The British had less traditional
affection to draw upon, and much more to explain away, but
they had the powerful asset of the cables and the good sense
to work, not secretly, but just outside the glare of publicity.
And neither the British nor the French w r ere severely handi-
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219
capped by a military-diplomatic programme, which hurled
all their fine pretensions in their teeth . 1
Now a formidable list could be drawn up of the propaganda
drives which failed or which accomplished their objective
after a long period of waiting. Not all the propagandas to
instigate defeat, Revolution, or secession and to preserve
friendship succeeded. After all, India, Egypt, Ireland and
Morocco did not respond to the proddings of German agents
to rise up as one man to cast off the yoke of the Englishman
and the Frenchman ; Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria
and Turkey did hold out for four long years. France,
Great Britain, and most of the Allies persisted through all
discouragement to victory, in spite of the dangerous German
peace offensive of I9ib-i7. But before regarding these
negative results as a defeat for propaganda, it must be
remembered that propaganda was not only an offensive
weapon ; it was a powerful means of defence as well. Unity
could be preserved just as it could be demolished by pro-
paganda. Indeed, propaganda was present on both sides
of every hotly-contested sector, and though it is one of those
weapons whose precise effect is largely a matter of surmise,
it is one which it would be foolhardy to neglect.
A defeated country naturally exaggerates the influence of
propaganda. The Italians sought to save their faces after
the Caporetto disaster* by complaining of the terrible and
1 The importance of propaganda in neutral countries has been illustrated,
of course, in many other wars before the last one. President Lincoln tried
every expedient to stimulate the pro-North sentiment in England’s indus-
trial wage earners during the Civil War. He sent Henry Ward Beecher
and perhaps a hundred other agents to, England to plead the cause of the
anti-slavery side. One of the most effective and original stunts was to
send a ship loaded with foodstuffs, to relieve the suffering in the cities.
* The report of the special commission of inquiry into the Caporetto
disaster which was appointed by the Italian Government is not now avail-
able, and complete judgment cannot be made upon the whole affair
/
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220 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
insidious German propaganda, and Ludendorff devotes a
great many pages to explaining just how it was that he did
not lose the War, and how the Alien and Radical riff-raff in
the population collapsed behind the lines, leaving a sort of
vacuum, in which the German troops fell, victorious to the
end.
It is especially difficult to extricate the strands of pro-
paganda influence from the means of control which are
closely allied to it. When the Nivelle offensive drowned
in a sea of blood in 1917, no less than twelve army corps
were tainted by mutinous demonstrations. Soldiers began
to start home, infuriated by the insensate butchery of their
comrades. It was the remarkable work of General Pdtain
which restored orderly enthusiasm to the front and thwarted
the ominous diversion of hatred which threatened to turn
the French soldiery against their own leaders and away from
the enemy. He relied by no means exclusively upon pro-
paganda. 1
But when all allowances have been made, and all extra-
vagant estimates pared to the bone.tthe fact remains that
propaganda is one of the most powerful instrumentalities
in the modem world.* It has arisen to its present eminence
in response to a complex of changed circumstances which
have altered the nature of society. ’ Small, primitive tribes
can weld their heterogeneous members into a fighting whole
1 For a description of his methods, see Mayer, La psychologic du com-
mandemenl. and. in general, the reference in the section upon moral and
military psychology ill the bibliography.
* Sir Thomas More foreshadows the extensive use' of propaganda in
Utopia. He record? how the Utopians spread distrust among their
enemies by offering a reward for the capture or the voluntary surrender
of prominent enemy leaders, and how they seek to divide the enemy by
fostering the ambition of a rival to the reigning prince.
unitize
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JNIVERS
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221
by the beat of the tom-tom and the tempestuous rhythm of
the dance. It is in orgies of physical exuberance that young
men are brought to the boiling point of war, and that old
and young, men and women, are caught in the suction of
tribal purpose.
In the Great Society it is no longer possible to fuse the \
waywardness of individuals in the furnace of the war dance ;
a new and subtler instrument must weld thousands and even
millions of human beings into one amalgamated mass of
hate and will and hope. A new flame must bum out the
canker of dissent and temper the steel of bellicose enthusiasm.
The name of this new hammer and anvil of social solidarity
is propaganda. Talk must take the place of drill ; print
must supplant the dance. War dances live in literature
and at the fringes of the modem earth ; war propaganda
breathes and fumes in the capitals and provinces of the world
Propaganda is a concession to the rationality of the mode
world. A literate world, a reading world, a schooled world
prefers to thrive on argument and news. It is sophisticated
to the extent of using print ; and he that takes to print shall
live or perish by the Press. All the apparatus of diffused
erudition popularizes the symbols and forms of pseudo-
rational appeal ; the wolf of propaganda does not hesitate
to masquerade in the sheepskin. All the voluble men of
the day — writers, reporters, editors, preachers, lecturers,
teachers, politicians — are drawn into the service of propa-
ganda to amplify a master voice. All is conducted with the
decorum and the trappery of intelligence, for this is a rational
epoch, and demands its raw meat cooked and garnished by
adroit and skilful chefs.
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222 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
^.Propaganda is a concession to the wilfulness of the age.
The bonds of personal loyalty and affection which bound
a man to his chief have long since dissolved. Monarchy
and class privilege have gone the way of all flesh, and the
idolatry of the individual passes for the official religion of
democracy. It is an atomized world, in which individual
whims have under play than ever before, and it requires
more strenuous exertions to co-ordinate and unify than
formerly. The new antidote to wilfulness is propaganda.
If the mass will be free of chains of iron, it must accept its
chains of silver. If it will not love, honour and obey, it
must not expect to escape seduction.
Propaganda is a reflex to the immensity, the rationality
and wilfulness of the modem world. It is the new dynamic
of society, for power is subdivided and diffused, and more
can be won by illusion than by coercion. It has all the
prestige of the new and provokes all the animosity of the
baffled. To illuminate the mechanisms of propaganda is to
reveal the secret springs of social action, and to expose to the
most searching criticism our prevailing dogmas of sovereignty,
of democracy, of honesty, and of the sanctity of individual
opinion. The study of propaganda will bring into the open
much that is obscure, until, indeed, it may no longer be
possible for an Anatole France to observe with truth that
" Democracy (and, indeed, all society) is run by an unseen
engineer."
□
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OF MICHIGAN
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
It is scarcely profitable in a study of this kind to rehearse
the long list of printed materials which have been cited. Instead,
a list that bears upon some of the main features of the general
problem will be appended.
I. The Technique of Influencing International
Attitudes, During and Since the War.
Angoff, Charles, " The Higher Learning goes to W'ar,” American
Mercury, June, 1927, XI : 177-191.
BaudriUart, Mgr. Alfred, Notre Propaganda, Paris, 1916.
,, ,, „ Une campagne franfaise, Paris, 1917.
Baschwitz, Kurt, Der Massenwahn, Munchen, 1924.
Bemstorff, Count, My Three Years in America, New York, 1920.
Blankenhom, Heber, Adventures in Propaganda, Boston, 1919.
Brownrigg, Rear-Admiral Sir Douglas, Indiscretions of the Naval
Censor, London, 1920.
Busch, Moritz, Bismarck, New York, 1898.
" Cincinnatus,” Der Krieg der IVorte. Stuttgart, Berlin, 1916.
Cook, Sir Edward Tyas, The Press in War-time, with some
account of the Official Press Bureau. London, 1920.
Creel, George, How We Advertised America, New York, 1920.
Demartial, Georges, La guerre de 1914. Comment on mobilisa
les consciences. Paris, 1922.
Demeter, Karl, “ Die Filmspropaganda der Entente im Welt-
kriege.” Archiv f. Politik und Geschichte. 4 (1925) : 2 14-231.
Drouilly, J. Germain et Gu&rinon, E , Les chefs-d' csuvre de la
propagande allemande. Nancy, Paris, Strasbourg. 1919.
Got, A., " La literature pangermaniste d’apr^s-guerre,”
Mercure de France, 167 ; 403-21, October 15th, 1923.
Graux, Dr. L., Les fausses nouvelles de la grande guerre. Paris,
1919. 5 tomes.
Hallays, Andre, L’ opinion allemande pendant la guerre, 1914-18,
Paris, 1919.
Haas, Albert, Die Propaganda im Ausland. Weimar, 1916.
223
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224 PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE IN WORLD WAR
Hansi (Johann Jacob Waitz) et E. Tonnelet, A trovers Us lignes
ennemies. Trots armies d’ offensive contre U moral allemand.
Paris, 1922.
Hartmann, Peter, Franzosische Kulturarbeit am Rhein. Leipzig,
1921.
Kerkhof, Karl, Der Krieg gegen die dcutsche Wissenschaft.
Charlottenburg, 1922.
Lass well, Harold D., “ The Status,of Research on International
Propaganda and Opinion,” Proceedings of the American
Sociological Society. Chicago, 1926.
Ludendorff, General, Meine Erinnerungen . Berlin, 1919.
Marchand. Louis. L’ offensive morale des AUemands en France
pendant la guerre. Paris, 1920.
Melville, Lewis, ” German Propaganda Societies,” Quarterly
Review, 230 (1918) : 70-88.
Merriam. Charles E., " American Publicity in Italy,” American
Political Science Review. November, 1919.
Military Intelligence Branch, Executive Division, General Staff,
U.S.A., Propaganda in its Military and Legal Aspects..
Washington, 1919,
Muhsam. Kurt, Wie wir belogen wurden. Die amtliche
Irrefiihrung im Weltkrieg Berlin, 1920.
Parker, Sir Gilbert, " The United States and the War,” Harper’s
Magazine, 136 (1918) : 521-531.
Prezzolini, Guiseppe, Dopo Caporetto, Roma, 1919.
Rivaud, A., ” La propagande allemande," Revue des sciences
politiques, July-September, 1922.
Rahlmann, Paul M., Kulturpropaganda. Charlottenburg, 1919.
Schonemann, F., Die Kunst der Massenbeeinflussung in den
Verciniglcn Staaten von Amcrika. Stuttgart, 1924.
Steed, Henry Wickham, Through Thirty Years. New York,
1924. 2 vols.
Street, Major C. J. C., " Propaganda Behind the Lines,” Cornhill
Magazine, 3d. Series, 47 (1919) : 488-499.
Stuart, Campbell, Secrets of Crewe House. The Story of a Famous
Campaign. London, 1920.
Stuelpnagal, Otto v., Die N ackkriegs- Propaganda der AlliierUn
gegen Deutschland. Berlin, 1922.
Whitehouse, Vira B., A Year as a Government Agent. New
York, 1920.
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NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 225
Wiehler, Deutsche Wirtschaftspropaganda im Weltkrieg. Berlin,
1922.
Daily Extracts from the Foreign Press (June, 1915 — ).
Daily Digest of the Foreign Press (March 20th, 1916—).
Daily Review of the Foreign Press (March 23rd. 1916 — ).
Brewing and Liquor Interests and German ( and Bolshevist) Propa-
ganda, Hearings before a sub-committee on the Judiciary
of the U.S. Senate, 65th Congress, 2nd Sess., Washington,
191. 3 vols.
The National German- American Alliance. Hearings before a
sub-committec of the committee on the Judiciary. U.S.
Senate, 65th Congress, 2nd Sess., Washington, 1918.
II. General Studies of Public Opinion and Propaganda.
Adler, Georg, Die Bedentung der Illusionen fiir Politik und
soztales Leben, Jena, 1904.
Ailport, F. H., and Hartman, D. A., " The Measurement and
Motivation of a typical Opinion in a Certain Group,"
American Political Science Review, XIX, No. 4, November,
1925 . 735 - 760 .
Angell, Norrnan (Lane), The Public Mind. New York, 1927.
Bauer, Wilhelm, Die offentliche Meinung und ihre geschicht-
lichen Grundlagen Tubingen, 1914.
Bernays, E. L., Crystallizing Public Opinion. New York, 1923.
Birnbaum, Alfred, Das Wesen der Propaganda. Eine Psychol.
' Studie, Berlin, 1920.
Bogardus, E. S., " Analysing Changes in Public Opinion,"
Journal of Applied Sociology , IX, 5, May-June, 1925,
372-381 ; also Proceedings of the American Sociological
Society, 1926.
Chassieriaud, R., La formation de l' opinion publique. Paris,
1914.
Christensen, A., Politics and Crowd- Morality, New York, 1915.
Conway, M., The Crowd in Peace and War. New York, 1915.
Deherme, Georges, Les forces d rigler. Le nombre ei Vopinion
publique, Paris, 1919..
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15 : 241-52, October, 1920.
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Fluegge, G , " Zur Psychologie der Massen," Preuss. Jahrb.,
i 9 2i, 183, 345-369.
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TY OF MIC
GAN
Digitized Oy
Google
original rrom
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
INDEX
Adventures as a German Secret Agent
in 1917 (von der Golz), 146
Aims of War, 58
Air. propaganda carried by, 180
Alliance Franfaise, 7
America (U.S.A.) and propaganda.
35. 43. “4. *35. M5
Annexation and expansion, 70. 71,
205
Anminzio, Gabriele d'. 141, 142
Aston, Maj.-Gcn., Sir George, 19
Atrocities. 81. 87. 89, 13 1. 162
Audacious, 1x0
Austin. 168. 174
Bairmspathrr, Brock. 98
Balfour, Lord, 63, 176
Balloons, 182. 212
Bang, Professor, 74
Bankers, and the War, 49
Baschwitz, Kurt, 1, 54
Beavcrbrook, Lord, 20, 21, 40
Bernstorfi, Ambassador. 34. 35. 140,
x 5°
Bi3marck, Prince. 33. 83. 129. X48
Bombing, by air, 84, 200
Borghese, Professor, 25
Brcshkovsky, Madame, 121
Bryce Report, 19
Buchan, Colonel, 20
Bullard, Arthur. 202
Burnham, Lord, 20
" Business as Usual " 101
Carson, Lord, 20
Catholicism and war, 72, 124, 130,
186
Cave 11, Nurse Edith, 32, 34
Chamberlain, Sir Austen, 30
, Houston Stewart, 92
Chicago Tribune , 145
Chisholm, Hugh, 49
Christine (Alice Cholmondcley), 94
Churchill. Winston, 39. ioq. 203
Civilians, effect of propaganda on,
11
Civilization, wars to save, 67
Collections, 2
Committee on Public Information
„ (U-S.A ) i8. 38, 4>. 194
Congress, (U.S.A.), and propaganda,
45
Corpse factories, 207
Courtier de l Air. Le. 180
Credo, for France, 57
Creel. George, 1, 18. 29. 37. 43, 21 1
Croix, La, 72
Cxecho-Slo vales. 176
Dacia, S.S., 141
Daily News, 48, 60
Defeat, propaganda of, 164
D6martial, Georges, 2, 83
Demburg, Dr., 149
Deutsche Kriegsnachrichten, 23
Donald, Robert, 20
Editors, newspaper, 29
Enemy Propaganda Department,
20, 24
Enemy, views of, 77
English-speaking Union, 7
Erb/eind, 128
Fakes, use of, 206
Fascio, in Italy, 53
Fashions, and war, 76
Fcldpost, Die, 166
Films committee, 19
Ford, Henry, 145
Forest, Louis, 80
Forgeries, of newspapers, 178, 179
France, and propaganda, 24, 33, 80,
85, 1 6b, 199
Franco-Prussian War, 129
Franklin, Benjamin, 158
Frightfulness, 199
Gaiette des Ardennes, 161, 171, 184
George, Lloyd, 30, 63, 108
German- American Alliance, 150
Germans abroad. League of. 7
281
Google
1IGAN
282
INDEX
German University League, 153
Germany, and propaganda. 3. 22.
32. 34 . 3 *. 56. 66, 78. 80, 83,
80. 112. 127. 132. 139. 149.
x6i, 167, 171, 178, 184, 197,
215
Golr, von der, 146
Grelling. Richard. 54
Grey, Vbcount, 189
Growth of a Legend (Langenhove),
* 3 *
Hale, W. B., 138, 150
Handler and Helden, 68
*' Hansi,” (Waitz). 33
Hate, cult of, 96, 195
Herv 6 . Gustave. 55
Hurrah and Hallelujah (Bang), 74
Innovations, secrecy of, m
Instruments, of propaganda. 211
Inter-Allied Corn mission, 23
, Shipping Control. 25
International Labour Office, 7
, Law. 65
Issues, in German Propaganda, 140
Italy, 1 1 4, 14 x, 175
J‘ accuse, 54, 178
Japan, 7. 127
Jews, 151, 176
Joflre, Marshal. 40
Jones, Leif, 40
Journalists, as propagandists, 29.
3 1
Jutland. Battle of, no
Kitchener, Lord, 40
Kultur, 68, 91, 196
Labour, and war, 63, 124
Laved an, Henri, 57
Law. A. Bonar, 78
League of Germans Abroad, 7
Lenroot. Senator. 44
Letters, publication of, xoo, 135
I-odge. Senator, 43
Liberal Party, and the War, 48
Ltbrc Belgique, La, 184
Lithuania, 117
Losses, publication of, 1x0
Ludendorfl, 23, 28, 176, 220
McClure, 36
MacDonald, J. Ramsay, 49
Mach, Doctor von, 35. 36
Digitus Google
Matson de la Presse, 24
Marchand. Louis. 1
Maaaryk, Professor, 174, 176
Maxwell, W. N., 10
M.I-7.b.. British Department, 180
Ministry of Information. 40. 42
Moysset, Henri, 25
Heed of the Belgians , The, 138
Negroes, 151
Neutrals, propaganda to, 130, 134
Hew Europe, 174
News, handling of, 17
Hew York Mail , 154
Northcliffe. Viscount, 3. 15. 20. 21,
24, 28, 32, 41, 45, 80, 193
Novels, on the war, 99
O'Connor. T. P.. 43
Opinion, public, 6, 14
Pacifism, 143
Page, Thomas Nelson. 141
, William Hines, 141, 147
Palmer, Frederick, 136
Parker, Sir Gilbert, 155
" Patna," film, 144
Peace Propaganda, 43. 143
Peace-time propaganda, 7
P6tain. General. 220
Petit Journal, Le, 50
Piave offensive. 29
Plenge, Johann, r
Plutarch Lied (Pierrefeu). 106
Poindexter, Senator, 44
Press Bureau, ig
Prophecy, and war, 108
Race, wars of,. 69
Religion, and war, 71, 97
Repington. Colonel. 109
Representatives, official, X58
Reuter's Agency. 3. 80
Riddell, Lord, 20
Robins, Colonel. 119. 159
Roosevelt, Theodore, 133, 135, 157
Root. Elihu, 159
Roussct, Commander, 109
Russia, 119. 125, 131. T59. 169. 215
Salter, Sir J. Arthur, 25
Samuel, Herbert, 15
Schonemann, F., 1
Scott. C. P.. 20
Self-determination, 174
Seton -Watson. 3*. *74
JMIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
INDEX
288
Shaw, Bernard, 98, 135 n .
Sheridan, General, 83
Socialists, and war, 61
Soviet, and Bolshevism, 7, 62,
Spy mania, 106
Steed, Wickham, 25, 29, 32, 116,
174
Stera-Rubarth, Edgar, 1
Street, Major C. J. C.. 180, 181
Stuart, Sir Campbell, x, 29, 206
Submarine campaign, hi
S ymond3, Frank, *09
Tardxbu, A., 1x7
Times, The. 52. 55
Toadies, Ferdinand, x, 92
Treaties, secret, 171
Union for Germanism abroad, 7
Union of Democratic Control, 66
Unity, Civilian. 11, 54, 55
Unity of Control, 16, 193
Victory, hopes of. 103
V&ix du Pays, Lp, 180
Wagner Culture Committee, 23
Wells, H. G . 31. 62. 98. 129
Wilhclmina, case of, 140
William II.. ex-Kaiser. 56, 90, 162,
i$ 9 . 197. 201
Wilson. President. 216
Wrcford, R. J. R. S., 201
I Zeppelin raids, 200
! Zionism, 176
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
17
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